End of Days
by AzureSwordsman
Summary: Two years after Naruto leaves to train with Jiraiya an unidentified ship appears on the coast of the Earth Country, bringing with it a dark power and an ancient secret that will change the lives of every shinobi. If they can survive it long enough...
1. Appearance

Disclaimer- I do not own Naruto. Enough said.

**Author's Note: Alright...so I have no idea what happened. I just logged on to find that the story had somehow vanished. Luckily I still have the chapters laying around here and there, so I'll be re adding them as you can see. For those of you who reviewed before, don't feel the need to redo your reviews or anything. To new readers who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'd always love to hear your opinions of the story too, so please do review if you have a moment after reading.** **But I won't take up any more of your time with this little note. Enjoy the repost (with a couple minor edits) of the first chapter of End of Days. **

Chapter 1;

Appearance

The hot summer sun sat in the sky, beating down on the coastal cliffs at the edge of the Earth Country. From the top of these cliffs the ocean seemed to stretch out forever to the north. A rather steep path was carved into the side of the cliff, leading down to the white sand of the beach that stretched across nearly the entire northern border of the Country. No more than three hundred feet from the shore a large ship was anchored in the water. Its torn white sails showed that it had had a rough journey from wherever it had come from.

At the edge of the cliffs, very near the crude path down, four shinobi were crouched low behind rocks. Three of them wore metal headbands over their foreheads and the final had an identical one tied around the upper portion of his right arm. All of the bands showed what appeared to be a single broken boulder, the symbol associated with the shinobi village of Hidden Stone.

A small rowboat had been lowered from the main ship now and was heading for the beach. As far as the small group of shinobi could tell, only three people were aboard it.

"Alright, remember that the mission is only to learn their intentions. Do not engage unless they make the first move!" The mans voice was full of confidence, but regardless, he gave the order without taking his eyes off of the boat for even a second.

The other three nodded to show him that they understood what to do and all three began their descent towards the beach. It only took them a minute and they found themselves crossing the scalding hot sand at the same time the three from the ship were climbing from their boat.

The first out of the boat was also the tallest. He wore a pair of tan colored pants and no shirt, though two metal belts circled his body. The two belts were not worn as normal people would wear them, but rather they came over his shoulders and crossed the center of his chest in an X shape. He was very muscular, even in comparison to the toughest looking of the four shinobi. A pair of rectangular glasses sat in front of his dark brown eyes, which matched the color of his hair perfectly.

The second was a girl, much shorter than the man and appearing a couple years younger. If they'd had to guess, the shinobi probably would have said she was seventeen. Her clothing was plain, a simple blue shirt and a pair of black pants. At her side though she wore a wore a broad sword, a fact which made the shinobi a little more alert than they'd been before noticing it. She had light brown hair and her green eyes seemed to pierce right through the shinobi, a feeling which for a brief second gave all of them the urge to just turn and run.

However they did not. They stood their ground as the third occupant of the boat, a boy with bright red hair that looked just a bit older than the girl, climbed from the boat onto the beachs hot sand. Like the first man he appeared to be completely unarmed.

The man with the Hidden Stone headband around his arm looked the three new arrivals over carefully. After a moment of silence, he spoke. "State your purpose for being here."

Another moment passed in silence, both sides seeming to stare each other down. Finally the boy with bright red hair raised his hand and extended four of his finger, one pointed towards each of the shinobi.

"Flamma Telum." A small bolt of flame shot from each of his fingers the second he finished speaking.

They were at too close range and had no time to react as a bolt pierced through each of their chests. All of them collapsed to the ground instantly, three dead and one badly injured. The survivor howled and pain and turned away from them in panic, trying to pull himself across the beach to safety. Though part of him knew that it was already over.

They let him crawl a few feet before the red haired boy reached down to one of his fallen comrades and took a kunai from the small pack strapped onto his leg. The boy threw it with no emotion of any kind on his face as it pierced through the back of the shinobis neck and his head collapsed onto the sand. He looked first to the man who stood about a foot taller than him, then to the girl on his other side. "Where there are ants...there is sure to be an anthill. Find it and crush it."

The other two nodded towards him and responded "Yes, sir" simultaneuosly, then they hurried off as their leader climbed back into the small rowboat and started back towards the ship with news of the skirmish.

-

Several hundred miles away, a young blond haired shinobi was enjoying his seventh bowl of ramen. The boy was dressed in an orange and black outfit, an improvement from the old blue and orange one he used to wear in his opinion. He sat on a stool at an unfamiliar ramen shop, a pile of bowls slowly accumulating beside him. It didn't really matter though, he had plenty of money at the moment and even if he didn't he could easily disappear and never return.

He didn't even know exactly where he was so that made the idea of never coming back quite easy. He knew that he was somewhere just outside the borders of the Fire Country and at least a hundred or two miles from the village he called his home. He hadn't seen it in nearly two years now, though it seemed hard to believe it had really been that long. After Sasukes betrayal he had no desire to stay in that place, he needed a vacation.

Then again spending two years travelling with his sensei, a man named Jiraiya, was one of those things you'd really have to be insane to call a vacation. He'd done practically nothing but train and watch Jiraiya chase women around the entire time, not that he minded the training part, but the woman chasing part had gotten on his nerves a bit lately. He was always ready for anything that could make him stronger...he needed to be stronger than Sasuke so that when he finally found him he'd be able to beat some sense into him this time.

As Naruto finished his final bowl of ramen, he noticed the white haired Jiraiya sit down on the stool beside him at his left. He spoke as Naruto payed the man behind the counter for his meal. "I managed to get some information. Apparently the Hidden Sound shinobi we've been tracking was last seen in a small village about ten miles west of here, so we're moving on."

Narutos face immediatly shifted to that annoyed face he always made whenever he was given a mission that he didn't want to do. "Can't we just spend one night in an inn for once? I'm sick of sleeping in fields and forests."

"There'll be plenty of time for that once we've caught our target. This one might finally be the link to Sasuke and Orochimaru that we've spent the past two years looking for." He assured him.

With a heavy sigh Naruto gave up the arguement, knowing that he didn't have a chance at winning anyway, and the two of them walked westward towards the next town.

-

Back in Hidden Stone, a man in his mid thirties sat behind a desk which was piled high with paperwork. He sighed with relief that his break, no matter how brief it would be, had come with the sound of his office door opening. A Jounin stepped inside with a slight bow to the man at the desk. "Tsuchikage-sama, two unidentified individuals have been spotted approaching the village from the direction that ship was reported in this morning. The team you sent out to investigate does not appear to be with them."

This sudden influx of information left him in silence for a few seconds, before coming to the obvious conclusion. "Go to the gate and tell the guardsthat nobody is to be let in or out for the time being and make sure they know the order came directly from me. If they attempt a forced entry, kill them."

"Yes, sir." The Jounin responded before quickly dissapearing from sight.

The Tsuchikage sighed again as he looked back to the pile of paperwork, then redirected his gaze out the window in the direction the potential intruders were supposedly approaching from. "I can already tell...this is gonna be a long day."

A few minutes passed staring out the window before he finally decided to get back to his work and picked up the pen at the edge of his desk. He finished a couple sheets before the sound of an explosion pulled his attention quickly away from the desk. Looking out the window he could see columns of smoke rising from the direction of the northern gate. He was up from his chair and through the door without a moments hesitation.

-

The pair from the ship stood just inside the village, the gates behind them having been blown inward. Around them the ground was littered with the bodies of at least twenty Hidden Stone shinobi. The girl sheathed her sword while the tall man with glasses just stood there with a bored expression on his face. "This is pathetic. These people seemed like their warriors at first, but then they just started dropping like flies..."

"Indeed. It is pathetic." The girl replied in the most bland tone Humanly possible.

The two of them looked ahead of them as the Tsuchikage himself appeared in the street directly in front of them and approached them without any sign of caution. The man with glasses smirked slightly at the fearless expression on his face. The Tsuchikage stopped his approach about fifteen feet from them and spoke with obvious anger in his voice. "How dare you do this, if you think you're leaving here alive I'm afraid you're badly mistaken!"

"Who the hell does this guy think he is?" The man said with a hint of amusement.

"I am the Tsuchikage, leader of this Hidden Stone village!" His fury was quickly rising, his temper had always been his one downfall in battles.

"Eh? The hell's a Tsuchikage? What the hell. Let's just kill this bastard." The man said to his female partner.

"Yes, let's." She responded in the same toneless voice as before.

The girl raised her right hand quickly above her head and with the words "Aqua Fluctus." a wall of water seemed to materialize out of nowhere behind the two of them.

She brought her hand down and the water came over their heads and straight at the Tsuchikage. He quickly jumped out of the way and landed on the roof of a nearby building. Glancing down at where he had been he saw that the force with which the water had hit had been enough to put several large cracks in the street. Looking up a bit from that point he saw that the girl was staring at the cracks in the street, paying no attention to him. The man..."Shit! Where'd he go?" He thought to himself as he noticed the man was gone.

A slight noise behind him was all the warning he had and he quickly turned just in time to block the mans fist with his forearm. The force from the impact was much more than he'd expected and he was knocked backwards, landing back in the street. "Dammit. Looks like I can't take these two lightly."

He pulled five shuriken from a pouch at his side and threw them towards the girl, who effortlessly deflected them with her broad sword. He followed the attack with a single kunai before she had time to counter. She raised her blade to deflect it as well, but just before reaching her it started smoking, then exploded in her face.

The Tsuchikage shifted to the right as the dark haired mans fist slammed into the ground where he'd been standing, leaving an indent where it struck. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the girl coming at him again. Her shirt was singed but other than that she appeared to have completely evaded the explosive note he'd wrapped around the handle of the kunai.

He quickly performed several handseals and a wall of earth shot up behind him, blocking the swing of the girls blade at the last second. Unfortunately his jutsu had left him open for a split second and the man took the opportunity to hit him squarely in the chest. The blow knocked him back into his own wall as the man came forward to finish him off.

In an instant, three members of the Hidden Stones special forces were standing between him and the man, protecting him from the attack. The man pulled his attack and flipped up over the Tsuchikages earth wall, landing beside his partner who was standing with her sword sheathed, waiting for him to finish things on his own. He looked at her in frustration. "Come on. We're retreating for now, this bastards a lot stronger than the others."

She obliged and the two of them took off through the gates. The three special forces shinobi started to pursue them as the Tsuchikage lowered his wall, but he quickly stood up and raised his arm to show them not to. "Let them go for now...send news of what just happened here to all of our allies. Even I had trouble holding those two off...and chances are good that there are more than just those two."

Without any sign of acknowledgement, the three of them headed off quickly to obey their orders.

-

Several hours later Tsunade, otherwise known as the Fifth Hokage, had her face planted on her desk. She was snoring lightly and a small puddle of drool was beginning to accumulate on some of her papers. Her eyes slowly opened and she blinked sleepily as she heard the sound of something outside tapping on her window. She turned her head to see a falcon standing on the windowsill, a letter tied to its left leg.

She stood up stretching and yawning, wondering silently how long she'd been out. She opened the window and took the envelope from the bird, which screeched and flew away immediatly. The first thing she noticed was the Hidden Stone symbol on the front of the envelope. "That's interesting...we havn't heard from them in the entire time I've been Hokage..."

Slightly more interested now, she opened the envelope and began to read. The farther down it she read, the grimmer the expression on her face grew. When she finally finished, she looked up towards the door and yelled "Raido!".

A moment later a young man with dark spiky hair and a bad scar on his left cheek stepped into the room. "Yes, Hokage-sama?"

"There may be a problem...I'd like to see Hatake Kakashi and Maito Gai ASAP." She said as she sat back down at her desk, placing the letter in a drawer.

Raido nodded an affirmative and then disappeared, shutting the door behind him. Tsunada took a kleenex from the corner of her desk and wiped up the drool, then took the letter out of her drawer and started looking it over again.

It was only fifteen minutes before Gai appeared in the room, but Tsunade refused to go over anything until Kakashi arrived. So the two of them sat there as an hour went by, Gai telling Tsunade all the stories he could think of, most of them involving Lee in some way or another. She was considering commenting on his unhealthy obsession with the boy when the door opened and Kakashi stepped in, smiling beneath his face mask. "Sorry, I got los-"

"Shut up and look at this." She said holding the letter out to Kakashi for the two of them to read, her patience had run out about half an hour earlier.

Gai got behind Kakashi, looking over his shoulder to see the letter as he read. As soon as the two of them had both finished, he handed the letter back to Tsunade. "And so you're sending us to see what's going on." Kakashi stated as she took it.

"Pretty much, yes. But only Gai will be going directly to Hidden Stone, along with his old team if he can round them all up." She said giving him a look to let him know she didn't need to hear any celebrations.

"And what will you have me doing?" Kakashi asked with his usual serious face.

"Take Sakura, track down Naruto, then meet up with Gais team at the border of the Earth Country."


	2. Beginning

Disclaimer- I do not own Naruto. Enough said.

Chapter 2;

Beginning

A few minutes after leaving Tsunades office, Hatake Kakashi was walking down one of Konohas many streets towards the Haruno household to pick up Sakura. As usual he was in no hurry and had already bumped into several people as he couldn't see where he was going through his latest perverted book. Though it was no Come Come Paradise, he would have to make do with it until the next volume of his long time favorite appeared.

After Sasuke abandoned Konoha and Naruto left with Jiraiya, only Sakura was remaining of the three members of his old team. He hadn't seen the two of them at all, nor had anyone else, and he only saw Sakura once in a while as she had been receiving personal training from the Hokage herself. Though he didn't show it he missed the old days, but had still quickly decided that he enjoyed the extra free time that had come with the disbanding of the team. So he had decided not to take on a new team of Genin and had gone back to taking on standard Jounin missions. He was going to enjoy going on a mission with them again though, maybe just this one last time.

He put the book in the pouch at his side as he approached Sakuras house, walked up to the door, and knocked. He waited on the doorstep for a moment before he heard some movement inside. A moment later the door opened and he saw Sakura standing just inside the doorway. He raised his hand as a wave and gave his usual smile. "Yo."

"Kakashi-sensei?" She asked with a puzzled look on her face.

"Tsunade-sama sent me. Get your stuff...we're going to find Naruto."

Somewhere on the other side of Konoha, Gai was much more openly enthusiastic about this new mission as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop in search of his old students. He knew exactly where to find Neji, but he planned to save him for last as he would most definitely be the most difficult to deal with. He had a good idea of where he could find his favorite student, whom he actually thought of more as a son than anything else.

Finally he jumped to the ground as the line of buildings came to an end and he headed into the forest, towards the place Lee had been training even back during his academy days. He moved through the trees crushing a few dead branches beneath his feet as he walked. Finally he came to a small clearing to find Lee on the ground doing single handed push-ups. He didn't even notice Gai as he said "Five hundred forty six...", counting off his push-ups.

Lee had been promoted to a Chuunin about a year ago, after his third attempt at the Chuunin Exam. He had hardly changed at all over the past two years, he was simply a taller version of his past self. At five hundred sixty push-ups, Lee finally stopped as he noticed Gai standing over him. He jumped up onto his feet excitedly. "Gai-sensei!"

Gai gave his Lee his old thumbs up pose along with a disturbingly large smile. "Tsunade-sama has given us a new assignment for the old team!"

Lees eyes lit up more and more as Gai explained the mission to him, but the best part of it all in his opinion was teaming up with Gai-sensei, Tenten, and Neji again. As soon as Gais explanation was complete the two of them set out to find Tenten, which proved to be even simpler than they had expected. Like Lee, she had been promoted to Chuunin on her third try and hadn't been given any missions recently and was had just been sitting around at home bored. She was almost as eager to take on the assignment as Lee had been and the growing team headed off once again towards the Hyuuga manor.

The two of them entered the large backyard to find Neji training by himself. His back was to them but through the help of the Byakugan he knew they were there immediatly. But instead of greeting them nicely, something anyone aside from Neji would have done, he chose to ignore them entirely in hope that they'd take the hint and go away. At almost the exact instant that thought passed through his mind, he heard Lee call out "Neji-kun!" in the hyperactive tone that Neji had always found incredibly annoying.

"Lee...take a hint?...I guess I should've known better..." He thought as he paused his training and turned around to face them.

"Now isn't a good time. I'm busy." He stated with the same 'get off my property before someone gets injured' expression and tone of voice he always used when someone came to visit him.

Tenten sighed heavily. She'd been expecting this even if the other two hadn't. "That's exactly what you always say...everytime one of us even gets near you."

For a brief period after their first attempt at the Chuunin Exam, Neji had actually become a nice person to be around. A very brief period. Unlike his teammates, he had passed the second time they took it. After he was no longer a part of the Genin team he decided he had no reason to hang around with them and had become gradually more distant. Then around the same time Lee and Tenten became Chuunins, Neji was promoted again to Jounin status. The very instant he received the Jounin promotion his superiority complex returned in its entirety.

"It's not a social call this time Neji," Gai explained to him, "The four of us have been ordered to leave for the Earth Country immediately.

-

Somewhere near the Hidden Stone Village, the red haired boy who had killed the four Stone shinobi stepped downward into the lower level of the ship he had come to the Earth Country aboard. He walked to the end of a very small hallway, where a guard was stationed on either side of the doorway at the end. He stood there silently staring at the door, keeping several feet back from it while he waited. The guard on his right nodded to him as he arrived. "Homaru-sama. Yukio-sama will see you now." He stated.

The red haired boy, now identified as Homaru, stepped forward and pushed the door open without a glance at either of the guards. He stepped into a decently sized room considering the fact that he was on a ship. It was well lit by several candles scattered at good points throughout it. On each side of the room stood three guards, six in total, all standing up against the wall. At the far end of the room a man of about forty sat in what appeared to be a throne. "So Homaru...what have you learned?"

"When we set out in the rowboat several hours ago we were met by four warriors, though they were easily disposed of. I sent Nobu and Mina out as scouts and they returned with news of a large village with equally weak warriors. Unfortunately an exceptionally strong one referring to himself as 'The Tsuchikage' managed to drive them back. They predict that he would have been no match for you or any of your elites however." He said in a passive tone.

Yukio began chuckling lightly to himself as he listened to the report. "I see, so this is it. We have finally found where the traitors fled to..."

"Yes, it appears we finally have." Homaru responded with a smirk.

"Very well, you have performed perfectly Homaru. The other ships should be arriving within the next forty-eight hours. If things go smoothly we should have the relics and be ready to head for home by the end of the week. You are dismissed."

Homaru nodded and silently let himself out of the room.


	3. Reunion

Chapter 3;

Reunion

It had been four days now since the two teams set out from Konoha to aid their allies in the Earth Country. However, as Naruto walked along behind Jiraiya through yet another forest, he was completely oblivious to the events unfolding in the rest of the world. For a few hours several days before it had seemed hopeful that they would finally find the key to Sasuke, but by the time they arrived in the village where the Sound shinobi they were tracking had supposedly been spotted he was already long gone.

Jiraiya had gathered as much information as possible from the locals and the two of them had set out once again. They'd seen no sign of civilization for more than two days now. Naruto's stomach growled loudly and he sighed. "How much farther is it to the next town?" He sounded pretty annoyed.

"Just a couple more hours I think." Jiraiya responded without looking back.

"You said that yesterday..." His complaint went either unnoticed or ignored though, as Jiraiya didn't respond.

Jiraiyas 'couple more hours' dragged on slowly and for the most part, silently. The sun was beginning to set and it didn't seem that they were going to be reaching the town before dark so Jiraiya stopped and turned to Naruto. "Alright, we're camping here tonight. I'll go find us something to eat, you set some traps around the area."

Two years ago Naruto would have thrown a fit about not reaching the town when Jiraiya had promised they would, but instead he nodded and went to work as Jiraiya set off into the forest. Naruto still had his hyperactive moments, but he was no longer the annoying little kid he'd been when they'd left Konoha. While he still looked mostly the same aside from being a bit taller, he had grown up a lot while travelling in search of Sasuke.

Just as he was about to begin working on some simple traps to defend the camp, he heard a twig snap in the trees to his left. At first he assumed it was just his sensei returning, then he realized that Jiraiya had gone in the opposite direction and it wasn't likely he'd circled the camp. He reached into the small pouch on his leg and pulled out a kunai, watching the area where he'd the noise carefully.

That was when he saw it move, impossible to completely discern in the semi-darkness that had come over the forest, but it was definitely the shape of a man smaller than Jiraiya. Without a seconds hesitation, Naruto thrust his arm forward and launched the kunai into the trees. Everything was silent for a second before he heard the sound of the kunai hitting it's target and a mans voice yell out "OW! DAMMIT!"

The funny thing was...he could swear he recognized the voice. Then he heard a second voice and his eyes went wide. It was a girls voice saying something that sounded very much like "Kakashi-sensei! Are you alright!"

Naruto couldn't believe his ears, but he hurried into the forest towards the voices as quickly as he could. Standing before him was Kakashi, a light wound in his right arm. Next to him was Sakura, who was holding his hands just over the injury as it slowly started to seal itself. Naruto just stood there in stunned silence for a moment before blurting out "What the hell are you doing here!"

Kakashi smiled at him under his mask. "That was a nice throw, I'm glad to see you've gotten better."

Sakura however didn't look nearly as pleased, in fact, she looked about ready to kill him. "What the hell are we doing here! We havn't seen you for two years and that's how you greet us? By throwing a kunai at Kakashi-sensei and then complaining!"

Naruto couldn't resist. He just gave them a huge smirk and started laughing. "Sorry about that, you surprised me! Man am I glad to see you two, I missed you!"

Sakura calmed down a bit and smiled at this. "Yeah...we've missed you too." She said quietly.

"Come on, Jiraiya should be getting back any minute" he said as he led the two of them into the area they'd decided on for their camp.

Naruto and Sakura sat down on a log while Kakashi leaned against a nearby tree. The three of them spent the next few minutes just talking about everything that had happened in the past two years. Sakura told Naruto about how she and all of the other Genins had now been promoted to Chuunin or higher, and Naruto told them about all the battles he'd been in since he left to train with Jiraiya and search for Sasuke.

Finally Jiraiya returned, unfortunately without any food, and looked at Kakashi and Sakura with no hint of surprise in his expression. "I thought it was you I heard swearing a while ago, Kakashi. What brings you two so far from Konoha?"

The peaceful feeling that had come with their long awaited reunion vanished in an instant as Kakashis face turned completely serious. "I wish I was here under better circumstances, but I'm here to take Naruto off your hands. There's a bit of trouble going on in Hidden Stone at the moment and Tsunade want us to help sort it out. We're supposed to be meeting with another team from Konoha at the village as soon as possible."

As soon as Kakashi finished speaking, Naruto started. "What kind of trouble? They have their own shinobi don't they? What do they need us for?"

"Apparently a ship showed up on the coast near their village a few days ago and a couple of it's passengers attacked them directly. Seems like their shinobi had little to no effect against only two of them, and even the Tsuchikage himself had trouble holding them off..."

Everyone sat in silence for a moment while Naruto and Jiraiya took in this new information. Then, slowly, Naruto stood up and his serious expression turned to one of excitement. "Sounds good! I need a good tough battle to test myself and see if I'm ready to go after Sasuke!"

Kakashi smirked under his mask and sat down against his tree. "We'll set off first thing in the morning...for now we should get a bit of rest."

-

As the sun began to set over Hidden Stone, Gai and his team began their final approach towards its southern gate. The gate was swarming with shinobi. At least five times the number that would normally be assigned to defend a gate. Neji scoffed at this as though he found it rediculous. "Are they really so weak here that they need that many to guard a single gate? Didn't the Hokage say that they were only dealing with one ship?"

"Let's not jump to conclusions until we know the full situation Neji." Gai said as they reached the gate and five shinobi got in front of them.

"What's your business here?" Said the one in the middle.

Upon closer inspection all of the guards around the gate seemed extremely tense, as if they were expecting some kind of full scale assault on the village any second now."We're shinobi from Hidden Leaf. We were sent by the Hokage to reinforce you."

"Let them in!" The voice came not from the guards, from inside the village behind the gate.

The shinobi obeyed instantly and the gate was pulled open, revealing the source of the voice that had ordered them admitted. The Tsuchikage stood facing them, looking relieved at first, then suddenly dissapointed. "Four? This is all Konoha could spare?"

The question was directed at Gai, but it was Neji who responded. "We were under the impression that we were only dealing with a single ship of enemies. Us, along with your shinobi, should be more than enough to deal wi-" That was when he noticed something.

Looking into the village from the gate, he couldn't see a single person that wasn't a shinobi. "Where are all the villagers?" He suddenly asked.

"I ordered them evacuated into the mountains yesterday. Only warriors remain here now." The Tsuchikage responded.

"One ship and you send your entire vllage running!" He was about to continue when Lee put his hand on his shoulder.

"Neji, you're speaking to the Tsuchikage...I'm sure he had his reasons."

"No," the Tsuchikage said as he shook his head, "The boy is right...but the circumstances have changed since we sent the message to Konoha."

"Changed? How?" Tenten asked before anyone else could.

The Tsuchikage turned to one of the guards and simply said "Show them."

The guard motioned for them to follow and led them off through the village. The passed through the destroyed north gate and up into the cliffs. For at least an hour they travelled upwards before coming to flat ground and walking even farther north. Finally, they reached the cliff's edge and looked out over the ocean.

Tenten made a noticeable gasping noise, as did Lee. Gai's face, usually bright and excited, seemed to pale a bit, and Neji just stood there staring in disbelief. Where there had been one ship four days ago, now sat at least a hundred.


	4. Countdown

Chapter 4;

Countdown

Aboard one of the many ships now waiting along the border of the Earth Country, Yukio sat in his throne with an expression of impatience on his face. This six guards in the room stood against the walls watching the door in silence looking like they wanted nothing more than for someone else to come and replace them. Yukio, though aware of this, paid no mind to it. He was used to his guards being afraid of him, he'd lost his temper on more than a handful of them before.

The guards hands dropped to the swords at their sides as the door opened. They relaxed a bit as they watched the red haired Homaru walk into the room. He shut the door behind him and Yukio smirked strangely in the direction of the wall to the right of the doorway. Without a glance at them he walked straight up to Yukio and bowed slightly. "You sent for me, Yukio-sama?"

He turned his attention from the wall and faced Homaru as he spoke and the smirk left his face. "Have the Elites been assembled?" He asked curtly.

"Nine of them have arrived so far...there's no sign of the other three yet." He responded quickly.

"I wanted this over and done with within a week and it's been five days already. We'll give the others two more days, then we attack whether they're here or not." His gaze suddenly left Homaru and shot to the wall beside one of his guards. "And if you touch that guard, I'll kill you."

Homaru followed his eyes in confusion. "What? Who are y-"

He was cut off as a voice began to laugh from the spot Yukio was staring at. The guard jumped back in surprise as a man seemed to materialize out of thin air right next to him. The man looked to be in his mid twenties and has messy black hair that hung down to his shoulders. On his belt he carried a pair of twin daggers.

"Lighten up Yukio, I was just tryin' to have a bit'a fun!" The man said with a laugh as he stepped forward.

Homaru gave the man a menacing look that made the guards cringe. "Juube! How did you get in here!"

"You really need to pay more careful attention to your surroundings Homaru...he followed you through the door before you shut it." Yukio stated plainly.

The new arrival took a look around the room at all of the guards before shouting "Go on! Get outta here ya worthless pieces'a trash! I need to have a little talk with Yukio-sama here." 'Sama' was said with a great deal of sarcasm.

The guards all turned to Yukio for orders and were out the door as fast they could be the second he gave the okay. Homaru however stood his ground, still glaring at Juube. Yukio leaned back in his chair and grinned as soon as the door fell shut. "Well then...what is it you want?"

"I've been meanin' to ask you why we're actually wastin' our time here. And don't give me that shit about 'bringing the traitors to justice', you don't give a damn about the traitors. Hell, what they did didn't even happen in our lifetime. Just what're you really after, Yukio?" He demanded.

Yukio simply laughed and shifted position in his throne. "I figured one of you Elites would see through that sooner or later. It's true that I don't have any interest in the traitors themselves. But do you happen to know what it was the traitors actually did, Juube?"

The man just gave him a puzzled look. "Does anyone, really? They were labelled traitors by the Emporer and they ran. Come to think of it...I really never even thought about what they might've done. Who gives a shit though, Yukio! It's ancient history now...it happened nearly five hundred years ago!"

"I spent years thinking that over, Juube. After they ran, the military spent nearly two hundred years searching for them before finally declaring it a lost cost. What reason would they possibly have to spend two centuries searching for a little group of traitors? Finally I realized...it's because they took something with them. Something important...something powerful. Think, Juube. What was it that mysteriously vanished hundreds of years ago?"

Juube stood there starting to look aggravated...then he realized what Yukio was talking and he instantly returned to the smirk he'd had when he first entered the room. "No...it can't be...their dissapearance was explained. You can't possibly mean the relics!"

-

"The situation has really become that bad...?" Kakashi said more to himself than anyone else as he followed Gai through the deserted streets of Hidden Stone.

"From what I saw last night the ships didn't appear to be from any of the hidden villages. We're dealing with an enemy we know nothing about." Gai responded with a seriousness that didn't fit him.

"No...we're dealing with an entire army of enemies we know nothing about. Hopefully the Tsuchikage's plan will at least be enough to hold them off."

Kakashi, Naruto, and Sakura had arrived in the early hours of the morning after Gais team had arrived. A group from Hidden Stones special forces had escorted them to the inn where the others were being allowed to stay where they waited for the Tsuchikage to call for them. Now it was noon and the two Jounins were on their way back from their meaning with the villages leader to inform their teammates of the parts they would play in the coming battle.

They entered the inn to find Naruto, Lee, Tenten, and Sakura all sitting around one of the dining tables talking while Neji was busy doing his loner thing and sitting at a different table clear across the room. The room fell suddenly silent as everyone turned to their senseis. Or would have if Lee hadn't leapt to his feet and yelled "Welcome back, Gai-sensei!"

"Not now Lee", Kakashi said as he raised a hand to prevent Gai from responding, "The Tsuchikage has given us our assignments."

"It's about time." Mumbled Neji.

"Hidden Stones forces will be divided into ten groups. Each group will be strategically placed at different points around the village." Kakashi began.

"Myself, along with Sakura and Tenten, will be joining the seventh division. Gai and Lee will going with the third division." He glanced to Naruto and then to Neji.

"Naruto and Neji...the two of you have the most important mission of all. You will be joining the Tsuchikages personal guard. Everyone should relax as much as they can for as long as they can. The enemy might not attack for a month, or they could be crossing the mountain as we speak."

-

Juube paced the beach near the fleet of ships alone, a cunning grin plastered on his face. He appeared to be waiting for something, as he kept stopping and glancing around every couple minutes. Seeing nothing he would then continue to pace along the sand. Finally a large group of rowboats came into view, coming to shore on the beach. He stopped pacing and smirked at them as around fifty men and women stepped out of the little boats and stood before him. One of the women stepped forward and looked him over. "Our orders were to wait in the ship, as were yours. We could all get in serious trouble of Yukio-sama learns of this. Now why is it you asked us to meet you here?" Her voice sounded angry, but her eyes showed a great deal of interest.

Juube laughed. "Don't gimme that crap, if you were actually scared of Yukio you wouldn't even be here. You let me worry about him...the old bastard'll get what he wants."

One of the men spoke this time. "We're not afraid of him because we're under your command, Juube-sama. Regardless though, we'd prefer not to anger him."

"I told ya to let me do the worryin'. Now listen up. Right now Yukio is sittin' in his little throne not doin' shit, chances are he'll never even miss us. He wants to wait for all twelve of us elites to assemble before attackin', but personally I think that's a load of bull. Based on Homarus report the people in this village are a buncha weak-ass idiots."

The woman spoke again. "So what are you saying?"

"I'm sayin' screw Yukio and screw his orders. The fifty of us should be more than sufficient, so get back to the ship and get ready. We strike at dusk!"


	5. Invasion

Chapter 5;

Invasion

Kakashi stood in the street leaning against the wall of the inn where the rest of his allies were relaxing as well as they could. Starting first thing in the morning they would be joining up with their assigned divisions except for Naruto and Neji, who would be guarding the Tsuchikage personally. This was their last night of peace before their lives became exceptionally difficult. As confident as he tried to appear in front of his team, he had his doubts. From the look of those ships they were outnumbered at least one to a hundred and according to the report from Tsunade just three of the mystery warriors had given the Tsuchikage trouble.

He sighed heavily and looked to the darkening sky. It was about eight o'clock in the evening now and nothing had happened yet. A fact he was more than thankful for. Though nobody showed it, they were all tense. They all knew the odds were stacked heavily against them. "Please...at least one last night..." He said to the air.

He pushed off from the wall and walked to the inn door. He froze solid as his hand touched the doorknob. An explosion sounded from the east, followed almost instantly by another to the west, then a final to the south. The inn door burst outward knocking Kakashi onto his back as Gai passed through. The rest of the group followed close behind him. Noticing Kakashi on the ground, Gai gave him a puzzled look. "What are you doing down there?"

"Nothing...nothing at all." Kakashi responded in an irritated tone as he stood back up.

"Those blasts came from the directions of all of the gates that weren't already destroyed...they're attacking from every direction." Neji commented calmly.

Kakashi straightened himself and turned to everyone. "Looks like we're not getting that last night to rest. You all know your assignments. Sakura and Tenten are with me in the seventh division defending the south gate. Gai and Lee are with the third division at the east gate. Naruto and Neji, you two need to get to the Tsuchikage's tower!"

"You can count on us!" Gai announced with a thumbs up and a grin, both of which were mimicked by Lee before the two ran off.

Naruto and Neji took off together towards the center of the village and Kakashi turned to the two girls. "Ready?"

The two nodded and they headed for the south gate. They didn't get too far before Sakura spoke. "Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi glanced at her as the three of them continued running. The look on her face and the tone of her voice both showed that she was worried. "What is it?" He asked.

"The enemy is someone who can stand up to the Tsuchikage with only three soldiers...do we really even stand a chance?"

"I wish I could say yes...but the same thought has gone through my mind. We just have to hope that those three were exceptionally strong. If they're all at that level then no, I honestly can't see us winning."

Sakura went silent and they continued onward. Listening in on the two of them, Tenten began to get worried too. It was just dawning on her for the first time now that she may never see her team again. She'd never felt like this on any other mission. There was something very clearly different this time.

-

Naruto and Neji ran through the streets side by side on their way to the Tsuchikage. Neji looked completely serious but Naruto looked excited, his old stupid grin spread across his face. He looked over at Neji. "So, Neji. Are you ready for this?" He sounded almost teasing.

Neji just glared at him. "I don't know why they sent you with me, I could handle this myself. Just don't get in my way."

Naruto looked straight ahead and became more serious. "In the end, you might end up being the one getting in my way."

Before Neji could respond Naruto sped up, pulling ahead of Neji. He'd make Neji and everyone else see just how much he'd changed during his time training with Jiraiya. There was no way he was going to fail this mission.

-

The fifth division, consisting entirely of Stone Chuunin, Jounin, and Special Forces, had fully gathered at the north gate. As the gate had been destroyed days before there had been no explosion from it and from the look of it no enemy forces had even thought to use it. They could've slipped through it silently by taking out a few guards, but instead they'd chosen to destroy the other gates and alert everyone to their presense. Almost as if they wanted them to know they were there.

A Stone Jounin turned to the shinobi nearest to him and began to complain. "It figures that our group is sent to the one gate that no enemies came too. We're not even going to see any action standing aro-"

He suddenly stopped speaking. The shinobi he'd been talking to gave him an odd look. He was about to ask if he was alright when a considerable amount of blood burst from the complaining Jounin's back and he collapsed face first on the ground. The eyes of the one he'd been talking to went wide and he reached for the sword at his side, but before he could draw it he felt his throat be slashed open and he fell backwards.

The rest of the shinobi at the gate all prepared to fight as a third hit the ground dead, then a fourth, and a fifth. One by one the guards were picked off, none of them ever even saw what hit them. As the final one died Juube materialized out of the air standing in the center of the bodies. He looked upward at the tower rising up over the rest of the village. "Heh...that must be where the big boss'a these bastards lives...this's gonna be fun." He grinned darkly and vanished once again.

-

Homaru bowed before Yukio's throne back on the ship. Yukio looked down at him questioningly. "I didn't call for you...what is it that you need?"

Homaru straightened up and cleared his throat nervously. "Well...you see...some of our scouts have reported explosions and the sounds of battle coming from that village. They're under attack."

"By who! I havn't sent any forces yet!"

"I can't confirm anything for sure, but I've asked around. Nobody's seen Juube for hours and half of the soldiers under his command also seem to have gone missing..."

"WHAT!" Yukio was on his feet so suddenly that Homaru forced to take a step back to avoid being knocked backwards.

The expression on Yukio's face was furious. He glared at Homaru using all the self control he had to prevent himself from killing the messenger. "Take Mina and Nobu and go! Bring that son of a bitch to me!"

-

Kakashi, Sakura, Tenten, and the rest of the Stone shinobi in their division were up against sixteen of the mystery soldiers. In the beginning they had had about thirty shinobi against those sixteen. The battle had gone on for fifteen minutes now and it was down to seven Stone shinobi and them against five of the soldiers. While these guys clearly weren't the ones who had given the Tsuchikage a problem, they weren't going down easily.

Kakashi charged one of them with a kunai and swung for his face. The attack was blocked by the mans shortsword. He lifted his headband, revealing the Sharingan. He jumped back and the man followed, swinging his sword downward. Instead of blocking he dodged to the right, anticipating the move. "Sorry...but you're just too slow." His kunai sank into the man's stomach as he spoke.

He looked around to see that Sakura and Tenten had both just taken down one of the soldiers as well, and they were now down to a single Stone ally. But the soldiers had finally been defeated, they'd won the battle to hold them at the south gate. The surviving Stone shinobi turned to Kakashi. "I'll be alright here now that we've taken care of them. You go and help your friends!"

Kakashi lowered the headband back down over the Sharingan and nodded. "You heard him girls, let's go find Naruto and Neji. They'll probably need us the most."

They turned and had just started away when the Stone shinobi screamed briefly before falling silently. They turned quickly to see the upper half of him hit the ground, having been completely seperated from the lower half. Staring at the three of them was a teenage girl holding a broadsword.

"Who are you!" Sakura demanded.

The girl stared at her for a moment before raising her sword into an attack position. "My name is Mina. That's all you need to know."

-

Meanwhile at the east gate, Gai and Lee were the only ones who remained. They had defeated the initial soldiers, but now a new man had appeared. He was wearing no shirt but had two belts wrapped around his body making an 'X' across his chest. "Hahaha! If you survived against these guys then you must be the strong one's of the group!" He blurted out suddenly.

Lee got into his fighting stance and introduced himself. "I am the beautiful green beast of Konoha, Rock Lee! If you're looking for a fight, then to avenge the deaths of these shinobi, I will be your opponent!"

The man started laughing. "Sorry kid, but I'm not seeing anything beautiful about you. But I will take that fight. The name's Nobu. No need for you to remember it though!"

-

All was quiet at the top of the Tsuchikage's tower. Naruto and Neji stood with three of Hidden Stone's top Special Forces members. The Tsuchikage stood at the edge of the tower looking down over the village. His eye's widened as a pillar of flame burst out of nowhere at the area where he'd sent his second division. Naruto ran to the edge at this sight and watched, an upset look on his face.

"They're getting slaughtered down there!" Naruto yelled as another blast of flame engulfed a group of shinobi. "Why are we just standing here doing nothing!"

"Calm down Naruto." Neji said as he walked up beside him. "Our mission is to protect the Tsuchikage, the fight down there isn't our problem."

"Like Hell it isn't!" And without another word Naruto jumped off the edge of the tower before Neji could stop him.

"DAMMIT! GET BACK HERE!" Neji shouted after him, but the Tsuchikage prevented him from doing anything else.

"Just let him go...if he has something else on his mind then he'll be no use anyway."

Neji scoffed and turned around just in time to see one of the Special Force members hit the ground in a pool of blood. The Tsuchikage noticed this too and turned quickly as another of the three shinobi dropped. "What's going on!"

The veins around Neji's eyes bulged out as he formed a single seal. "Byakugan!"

Now able to see the source of the attacks Neji watched a man with messy black hair stab the final member of the Special Forces in the lower back. He then turned and lunged at Neji, meaning to cut his throat. Before the attack connected though Neji brought his hands up and caught the blade by clapping his palms together on it. The man gave him an extremely shocked look. "You...you can see me!"

"Nothing can hide from me...it's pointless to even try. Now who the hell are you?" Neji asked calmly.

The man's shocked look faded and a smirk replaced it. "Eighth member of the Elite Twelve, Shogoten Juube!"


	6. Overconfidence

Chapter 6;

Overconfidence

"I have no business with you. Get out of my way and I will spare your lives." Mina stood with her sword ready, but made no move to attack as she spoke to the three Leaf shinobi.

Kakashi removed the headband from his sharingan once again and faced her. "You killed one of our allies. Our mission is to eliminate all enemies of this village and so we can't simply let you go."

"I see...I too have a mission here and if killing you is necessary for me to complete it, then that is the way it will be." Her voice didn't change the slightest bit even when threatening to kill them, it remained perfectly calm.

Before Kakashi or Tenten could do anything, Sakura had begun towards Mina at a run. "I'll take care of this one. I havn't been training with Tsunade-sensei for nothing!"

"Sakura! Don't!" Kakashi yelled in protest, but it was too late.

Sakura swung her left fist forward at the enemies face but Mina simply raised her blade and blocked the punch with the flat side. She hadn't, however, been anticipating Sakura's strength. She was thrown backwards several feet from the force of the blow. She landed on her feet and brought her sword into an offensive position. "You could become a problem if I let this go on for too long...so I'll be ending this now."

Mina moved forward in a flash. Even Kakashi with his sharingan had slight difficulty following the attack. Sakura reacted, but not quickly enough. Mina swung her blade upward vertically as Sakura pulled backwards. The tip of the sword connected and drew blood from her chest. While Sakura was still surprised she pulled the blade back and stabbed it forward at her.

Had Tenten been one second slower, Sakura would have been dead. She stood between the two of them using both hands to hold back Mina's sword with a pair of kunai. While Tenten had her held back Kakashi performed a few seals and electricity began to crackle around his hand. "I'll say to you what you said to Sakura. You could become a problem if I let this go on for too long...so I'll be ending this now."

A good amount of water suddenly materialized at Mina's side and lashed out at Kakashi. Caught off guard he was hit directly and knocked into the wall of a nearby house. His Raikiri died out and he stared at her as he regained his balance. "What was that...? My sharingan didn't see anything coming until it had already hit me. This girl is even more dangerous than I thought..." He thought to himself.

Tenten pushed forward with all of her strength, forcing Mina to jump back a bit. "Are you alright Sakura?" She asked without taking her eyes off her opponent.

Sakura stood back up and got beside Tenten. "I'll be fine. It's only a scratch."

Mina pointed the tip of her sword at the two of them staying several feet back. "You should never let up on your attacks when facing an enemy above your own level. It's over...you've lost."

The moment she stopped speaking water appeared around Sakura and Tenten, soaking the lower halfs of their bodies. Before they had time to register what was happening the water had frozen solid, leaving them completely immobile from the waist down. With a wave of her sword a hundred needles of ice formed hovering in the air surrounding the two of them.

"Goodbye." Was all she said as the needles launched inward at their targets.

-

Lee barely had time to move as Nobu's fist slammed into the wall just behind him. Cracks spread quickly across it and a moment later the entire building came crashing down. He turned and sent another punch at Lee. With no time to dodge this one he blocked it with his forearm and was thrown backwards through the window of the shop across the street.

Gai was on Nobu in an instant but he simply caught Gai's fist and smirked at him. "Is this really all you people can do? I was expecting to have at least a little bit of fun."

"Lee! Lose the weights! We can't hold back on this one!" Gai shouted over his shoulder.

"Damn right you can't." Nobu said as he brought his free fist into Gai's jaw.

Gai hit the ground hard as two loud crashes were heard from inside the shop and Lee leapt back out through the window, his speed greatly increased. He sped in circles around Nobu before finally leaping forward and slamming his fist into Nobu's chest. It felt like his knuckles had shattered. Nobu grinned and brought his knee up into Lee's stomach, causing him to cough blood onto the ground.

He stumbled back and gave Nobu a surprised look. He'd never fought anyone who didn't at least feel his hits. "I guess like this I'll never be able to hurt you. But maybe...if I do this!"

The air around him began to waver as his chakra surrounded his body. "Initial Gate, release!"

With a sudden burst of energy he began to circle Nobu again. After a moment he came at him directly from the front kicking him hard in the chin. The impact sent Nobu into the air, but Lee wasn't done yet. He continued kicking him higher into the air before finally getting behind him and wrapping him in the bandages he wore on his arms. He then grabbed him, flipped them both upside down, and began spinning towards the ground like a drill. Gai heard Lee yell out "Omote Renge!" a second before he hit the ground, sending up a cloud of dust, dirt, and rubble.

But unlike usual, Lee didn't come flipping out of the cloud immediately afterwards. When the area cleared Lee was laying facedown in the center of a crater in the street looking completely dazed. Nobu stood over him, the bandages broken off. "Gotta give credit where credit is due kid. That technique would be nothing short of devastating if you perfected it. But as it is it was far too easy for me to make sure you hit first, minimising the damage to myself. Too bad you won't live long enough to strive for that perfection...I would've liked to see that technique at it's best." And with that he slammed his foot down on Lee's lower spine.

-

Naruto arrived to find nothing left of the Stone shinobi but charred bodies. Standing before the bodies was a red haired boy who looked just a few years older than Naruto facing away from him. "You bastard...what did you do!"

Homaru turned curiously towards the voice and looked Naruto over carefully. "What's this? One of the ants actually managed to not be crushed?"

"What are you here for! These people never did anything to you and you show up and just start killing them all for no reason!"

"I have no reason to answer to you. I will kill anyone who gets in my way, including you."

Naruto's eyes began to change, turning from blue to red and looking much more animal like. He formed a seal and a single shadow clone appeared at his side. The two Narutos charged forward at Homaru. The real one held his right hand to the side the clone placed his hands over it and began to make rapid movements over it as chakra began to spin wildly in his palm. When the ball of chakra was complete the clone vanished in a cloud of white smoke.

Homaru pointed his palm towards the blonde boy and a stream of flames burst forward from it. Naruto held the spinning chakra in front of him and the fire was blown off to the sides, allowing Naruto to cut straight through it. Not expecting Naruto to make it through the attack, Homaru was completely unprepared when the Rasengan hit him directly in the chest. He flew a good thirty feet down the street sending pieces of pavement flying as he slammed back down into the street on his back.

Homaru lay there for a moment. His shirt was torn up and his chest was bleeding, but other than that and a some scrapes on his back and arms he was unharmed. He sat up and looked towards Naruto, about to comment that he was stronger than other idiots he'd just killed but stopped quickly as he tried to understand what he was seeing. Naruto was down on all fours surrounded by orangish chakra that had the basic shape of a fox. One tail was fully visible twitching behind him and a second was beginning to form. "His strength is growing incredibly fast...if it continues like this he'll be more powerful than myself. I need to kill him. Now!" He muttered most of this to himself, but yelled the word "Now!" as he leapt back onto his feet.

The surrounding buildings spontaneously burst into flames, the glass in the windows blew outward into the street. "I apologize for calling you an ant, you're going to be harder to kill than that. I'd have been more justified in calling you a fly..."

-

Neji's eyes were locked with Juube's. Neji still hadn't released his dagger and Juube hadn't made any effort to pull it back to him. "Eighth member of the Elite Twelve? That doesn't mean anything to me." Neji said slightly annoyed.

"Tch, fine. Listen good kid cause I ain't gonna repeat myself. Yukio's army consists of about two thousand soldiers. Most'a which are just a bunch'a worthless garbage. Among them there're twelve who stand out above that trash. To put it in a way an idiot like you can understand, out of an army'a two thousand, in terms'a power and skill, I'm the eighth strongest."

Neji's eyes narrowed. "So the three that our report said gave the Tsuchikage trouble were members of those twelve."

Juube chuckled slightly at Neji's assumption. "What? Ya talkin' 'bout Homaru, Mina, an' Nobu? I'll admit that those three ain't trash, but they ain't Elites either. I could take on all three'a them at once an' they probably wouldn't even hurt me."

Juube pulled his dagger out of Neji's grip and crossed both daggers in front of his chest in X. An arc of energy fired from each as he quickly pulled them upward diagonally, seperating them. An explosion shook the entire tower as the energy connected with it's target.

-

The ice holding Sakura's legs in place shattered as she slammed her fist down into it. She shoved Tenten to the side and dove in the other direction just in time to avoid the needles which stuck into the street. She touched her thumb to the wound on her chest, covering it in blood, and performed several hand seals before slamming both palms into the ground and shouting "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

In a cloud of white smoke a massive slug appeared from nowhere crushing several nearby buildings with it's weight. It didn't need any orders, realizing immediately what was going on. Mina jumped back in surprise as it spit a large amount of a yellowish substance at her. The road dissolved almost instantly where the liquid hit.

She turned to her left seeing Tenten coming at her from the corner of her eye, the ice holding her having been broken when Sakura shoved her into the ground. She brought her sword up in time to deflect a shuriken but couldn't turn fast enough to prevent Sakura from punching her directly in the side of the head.

Barely managing to land on her feet she pointed her sword straight at them, finally losing her cool. "That's it! DIE!"

Another hundred needles of ice formed in the air directly in front of her, pointing towards Sakura and Tenten. Mina felt a sudden pain in her back and electricity coursed through her body. The needles turned back to water which fell to the ground. After a moment of standing there with her eyes wide in surprise, she collapsed face first in the street.

Kakashi stood behind her, his outstretched palm still surrounded by crackling electricity. It faded out slowly and he lowered his headband to cover the sharingan once again. "You might've won if you had just followed your own advice...you should never let up on your attacks when facing an enemy above your own level. "

-

"View Gate, release!" Gai shouted as chakra exploded around him.

He launched forward at Nobu so fast the ground beneath him was ripped apart. Nobu saw no need to move as Gai's fist slammed into his left shoulder. That was a mistake. The moment the attack connected he felt his shoulder shatter. "What the Hell! A minute ago you couldn't even hurt me!"

"You should never underestimate the shinobi of Konoha! To do so is to gaurentee your own defeat!" Gai announced confidently as he went in for another attack.

Nobu took a swing at him but all he hit was air, Gai was already long gone. His foot connected with the back of Nobu's neck, driving his face into the stone street. Nobu rolled away from Gai and climbed back onto his feet, removing the two belts from his chest. He swung one of them at Gai like a whip but it was dodged easily. The ground where the belt struck was blown apart by the force of the hit. "Hold still, bastard! Die! Die! DIE!"

Each "die" was accompanied by the sound of a belt striking the spot where Gai had stood a moment before. Nobu was tearing the street apart but as hard as he tried he couldn't land a single hit on his target. Finally Gai appeared directly in front of him, kicking him in the sky. He leapt into the air directly behind Nobu and bandages wrapped around him. "You said you'd like to see this technique at it's best...well then you'd better not blink."

The two of them spun directly into the ground but this time it was Nobu who was slammed into the stone. The crater formed was at least five times larger than the one formed by Lee. The chakra around Gai faded away and he walked over to his student. "Lee...are you alright!" He sounded on the verge of panic.

Lee just lay there, but Gai relaxed as Lee simply gave him a thumbs up.


	7. Catastrophe

Chapter 7;

Catastrophe

The sun was completely gone from sight now, the only light remaining a dim glow on the horizon. In that dim light the giant bird that soared high above the ships off the coast of the Earth Country was all but invisible. Even if someone did somehow manage to notice it, there was no way of them spotting what sat atop it.

A blonde haired man leaned over the edge of the bird as it flew, looking down on the ships through a scope on his left eye. He wore a black cloak decorated with red clouds, the trademark of the criminal organization Akatsuki. "So...the rumors were true after all."

Looking in the direction of Hidden Stone he could see the red glow of fire in the darkness. "Last I checked that village wasn't that weak. If these guys can take the village out then they could become a threat even to us. I'd better take a detour and go report this...where the hell is Zetsu when you actually need him?"

The bird turned and flew off away from the ships, leaving them to their destruction of the village. He was completely oblivious to the fact that one of his targets was fighting in Hidden Stone at that exact moment.

-

A ball of fire came crashing down at Naruto but he blew straight through it and continued at Homaru. His second tail was completely formed and a third was just beginning. He hit Homaru in the face with an open palm, throwing him through the window of one of the flaming houses. As he moved in to continue his assault a wall of flame rose up from the ground and threw him back into the ground.

Five pillars of flame rose from the fire, surrounded Naruto, and began to rotate rapidly around him, quickly closing in. The pillars collided in the center, a direct hit on Naruto. Homaru walked back into the street and watched as the pillars slowly died out. "Your power is incredible...but it's wild and uncontrolled. It's for the best though...if you could actually control it you might even be able to rise to the same level as the Elites."

Homaru's eyes widened as the flames finally cleared away completely. Naruto was gone and in his place was a being that seemed to be made of chakra. A minature Kyuubi with four tails faced him. He could tell that it was still the same boy he'd been fighting, but at the same time it was not. A gust of wind rushed over Homaru going towards the Kyuubi. He realized that the air was being pulled inward from every direction and at its center, directly in front of the Kyuubi's face, a black ball of chakra was beginning to form.

It quickly reached the size of a basketball and with a roar from Naruto, launched forward straight at Homaru. In his shock he didn't react immediately and that short delay was more than enough. He raised his arms up in front of him to try and block as much damage as he could, having no time to avoid it entirely. As he got into his defensive stance two arcs of energy flew past him from behind, one passing on each side. The two arcs intercepted the ball of chakra, sending both Naruto and Homaru flying backwards as the three attacks exploded.

Homaru and Naruto lay on their backs on opposite sides of a crater a hundred feet across. The street and all of the surrounding buildings had been completely destroyed. Homaru sat up and looked across at Naruto. He lay there motionlessly and all of the tails had vanished. He was back to normal. Before Homaru stood a voice came from behind him. "Would ya look at that? Lil' Homaru gettin' his ass handed to 'im by a stupid kid."

Homaru climbed to his feet and turned around. "Juube..." The name came out sounding like a growl.

"Hey now, don't be gettin' pissed at me. It ain't my fault." Juube said as he walked up to him, paying no mind to the destruction he'd just helped to cause.

"You're coming with me. Yukio-sama is furious right now...he sent me, Mina, and Nobu to bring you back to the ships."

"The battles goin' on at the gates went silent while I was havin' my fun, so I went to check them out before I came here. Mina and Nobu're both dead." Juube said with a hint of humor in his voice.

"What! That's impossible. Nobody here could have beaten them!"

"Ya can go take a look for yourself if ya want to. Pretty sure the buddies'a that kid you were fightin' got to them before I did."

"If you're telling the truth...then at least they died fighting for Yukio-sama. I was sent here to bring you back, that is my only objective. Now let's go." He turned and started walking north.

"Yeah, yeah...whatever." Juube responded with a smirk as he followed.

-

Ten minutes passed as Naruto lay on his back. His face was covered in blood from a cut he assumed he'd gotten from whatever caused the crater that sat in front of him, but he couldn't remember. He remembered the pillars of fire converging on him and then he blacked out. When he came to he was on the ground bleeding with a huge crater in front of him.

He heard footsteps approaching him from the left but didn't have the strength to do anything but turn his head and look. Kakashi, Sakura, Tenten, and Gai were approaching him on foot and Lee was being carried by Gai. He appeared to be unconscious. As soon as Sakura spotted him laying there she ran up and knelt beside him. "Naruto! Are you alright!"

He tried to laugh but it came out as more of a gag, so he just grinned. "I think...I'll live..."

Talking was actually difficult. He realized that he must be even more injured than he thought...he just wished he could remember what happened. Kakashi walked over and lifted him off the ground, carrying him the same way Gai was carrying Lee. Everyone looked relieved for a moment, but then Gai's face became worried again. "Naruto...where's Neji?"

Naruto was barely still conscious but he heard the question. He managed to keep himself awake for just long enough to look towards the Tsuchikage's tower before blacking out entirely. The rest of the group all looked in the same direction and immediately noticed that the top of the tower looked like it had been the site of a major battle.They all started running that way immediately, hoping they weren't too late.

-

It only took them five minutes to reach the top, but what they found was not a pretty sight. Neji, the Tsuchikage, and his three guards were all facedown in a pool of blood. Tenten and Gai immediately ran to Neji while Sakura went to the Tsuchikage. "Neji! Are you ok!" Tenten yelled with panic in her voice.

Kakashi walked up beside Sakura as she examined the Tsuchikage, waiting for a response to an unspoken question. After a second she looked up at him and shook her head. "He's dead."

She then moved quickly to Neji to examine him as well. The first thing she noticed was the wound on his face. It looked like a dagger had slashed horizontally across both of his eyes. She turned towards Tenten and Gai. Gai was doing his best to remain calm, but Tenten was barely holding back tears as Sakura spoke. "He's still alive...but barely. I can probably save him...but the question is, would he want me to?"

"What the hell are you talking about! Of course he'd want you to! You have to save him!" Tenten shouted at her.

Sakura just looked from Neji to her with a sad expression on her face. "Tenten...look at the wound over his eyes. Even if I can save his life, I can't fix that. He won't be able to live as a shinobi anymore...he'll be blind."

This time it was Gai who responded. "Do it, Sakura. I have confidence in Neji. He'll find a way to pull through this."

She nodded slowly and went to work with the medical techniques Tsunade had taught her. Kakashi set Naruto down and walked to the edge of the tower. Gai did the same with Lee and followed him. Looking down they could see that all of the battles had ended and more than half of the buildings in the village had been completely destroyed. Kakashi spoke without looking towards Gai. "There are no shinobi left, the village is destroyed, the Tsuchikage is dead, and the civilians have fled into the mountains. Not only did we fail this mission in every way possible...but this is truly the end of Hidden Stone."

-

Juube pushed open the door to Yukio's throne room and stepped in with a smirk on his face. "Guess who's back, Yuk-"

He was cut off mid-word as Yukio's fist smashed into his face, breaking his nose. Before he had a chance to retaliate Yukio grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall, causing the entire ship to rock. "Shogoten Juube...do you have anything to say for yourself before I end your miserable life?"

"Yeah...I do. Ya'd best calm yerself down or ya might accidently damage somethin' important." As he said this he reached into his pocket and pulled out an object which he lifted directly in front of Yukio's face.

He let go of Juube's throat and took a couple steps back staring at it. The object was a dark brown sphere about the size of a baseball. It looked very much like a giant marble except for one key difference, it was glowing. Something in the center of the sphere seemed to give off it's own light, illuminating the entire thing. "The Earth Relic...you found it..." Yukio said in awe, completely forgetting Juube's beating.

"But where are the other four!" Yukio demanded, suddenly remembering how angry he was.

Juube wiped the blood away from his nose and reached into his shirt, pulling out a scroll which he set down on the floor and opened. It was a map of the continent. "Best I can tell we're right 'bout here." He said as he pointed along the shore of the Earth Country.

"The map says this's the Earth Country. The five largest countries are the Earth Country, Wind Country, Fire Country, Water Country, and Lightnin' Country. Since the Earth Relic was in the Earth Country...common sense let's ya know where'ta find the other four."

Yukio grinned as he looked over the map. "It looks I may spare you yet...it's time to get to work."


	8. Preparations

Chapter 8;

Preparations

"So...that's how it is." The speaker had a deep voice but his body and face were both hidden by darkness.

The darkness was the inside of a cavern, the entrance to which was known by very few. Around the room stood a total of nine figures, all of them obscured by the almost complete lack of light. Another voice spoke up. "I wouldn't believe it either if I hadn't seen it for myself, but there's no doubt about it. Hidden Stone has been destroyed."

"Then we lost that villages Jinchuuriki?" A third voice this time.

A fourth responded to him. "Not necessarily. We don't know the identity of Hidden Stone's Jinchuuriki yet, they may not have been in the village."

The first voice spoke again. "Right now that is irrelivent. Based on Deidara's initial report, which Zetsu has now confirmed, the legend of the ancient traitors and their five relics is indeed fact. This must therefore become our primary concern, for the time being the Jinchuuriki come second."

-

Five days later, Naruto and Kakashi stood in the field where he had first become a Genin. Jounin and ANBU were swarming all of the entrances to the village. Tsunade had ordered the increased security as soon as Kakashi had informed her of the fate of Hidden Stone. "So Kakashi-sensei...what are we doing?" Naruto questioned.

Kakashi was just staring up at the sky, which he'd been doing since Naruto had arrived five minutes ago. Kakashi had asked him to meet him there, but he hadn't specified why. Finally he looked down at his student. "Neji woke up this morning."

Neji had been unconscious since he was found on top of the Tsuchikage's tower. They'd arrived back in Konoha yesterday and he'd been admitted to the hospital. Sakura had already healed any life threatening wounds but they still wanted to keep an eye on him at least until he regained consciousness. Naruto's eyes lit up when he heard that he was awake. "Really? Is he alright?"

"He'll be fine...but as Sakura predicted, he's blind. His eyes were damaged beyond repair. He panicked when he first woke up...it took several medical shinobi to hold him down until Gai got there and explained everything that happened. But the reason I called you here is because of the report he gave to Tsunade."

"Report?" Naruto really had no idea what Kakashi was talking about.

"Yes. Apparently he and the Tsuchikage were not attacked by a group. They were attacked and defeated by a single man named Shogoten Juube. The man was apparently a member of something called the Elite Twelve...the twelve strongest members of the army of our enemy. He was only the eighth strongest and managed to defeat Neji and a Kage together. In light of this, it has been decided that everyone is to receive special training."

"What do you mean by special?"

"For everyone else it means that their Jounin teacher is putting them through a very high level training which will allow them to develop their own unique jutsus. Tsunade-sama is training Sakura personally which leaves you alone with me...and we're going to be doing something slightly different. You already have the Rasengan, which means you aren't in as desperate need of a powerful jutsu. Instead we're going to be working with the Kyuubi."

Naruto's expression became quite surprised. "Kyuubi? Why do we need to do anything with that bastard?"

"Like it or not Naruto, the Kyuubi is a part of you. I felt your power when you fought in Hidden Stone...as great as it was, it was also completely uncontrolled. While you were likely feeling the strain of using fifty percent of the Kyuubi's strength, you were only actually using less than twenty due to your lack of control over it. I don't know if this will work or not...but I'm going to try to teach you to focus the Kyuubi's power to use as much as possible without losing control of yourself."

-

Neji sat on a tree stump in the training field behind the Hyuuga manor. His headband was no longer covering the curse mark on his forehead but had instead had been lowered to cover his eyes and the scar across them. It didn't matter anyway. No matter where he looked, even without the headband covering his eyes, all he saw was an endless darkness.

He had never before been more furious with himself. He'd failed missions before but he had always been able to think to himself that he'd make it up by going above and beyond the expectations with the next. Now he didn't even have that. He heard someone approaching him from behind and turned to look out of habit before remembering that there was no point.

The person stopped and stood just beside him and spoke. "I truly am sorry about what happened, Neji."

He recognized the voice immediately. It was his uncle, Hyuuga Hiashi. "What do you want?" He muttered.

"I know this is hard for you, but your life isn't over. Now I finally have at least a small way for me to make up for the death of your father."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Have you ever heard of Hyuuga Heizen?" His uncle responded.

"Who is that?" He asked with anger growing in his voice.

"He died a long time ago. He was the only Hyuuga who became a shinobi but never learned how to use Jyuuken or Byakugan. You see...he was born blind. As his siblings became shinobi he began to hate himself, because as much as he wanted it the academy wouldn't accept him because of his condition. Even though he couldn't use Byakugan or Jyuuken he refused to give up and began to develop a style that didn't require sight. A sword style based on the senses of hearing and touch which he called Odana. This...was his." His uncle finished as Neji felt something press against his chest.

He reached up and took it to realize that it was a katana. He remained silent and his uncle spoke again. "While no Hyuuga has truly used Odana since Heizen, bits and pieces of it have been passed down through the generations. If you'll let me...I'll do my best to train you."

-

Chouji blocked Kiba's fist with his forearm, not budging from the spot. He grabbed Kiba's arm and threw him across the training room. Shino didn't have time to react as Kiba came crashing into him and the two began exchanging blows without a word as soon as they'd both regained their balance. Kiba, Shino, Hinata, Ino, Chouji, Shikamaru, Lee, and Tenten were going at each other in a eight person free for all. Asuma and Kurenai stood against one of the walls supervising the battle, but not getting involved.

Kurenei turned to Asuma to question him. "I understand the reason for this fight...but why did you ban them from using any of their jutsus?"

"It's simple...normally the training we're about to put them all through takes at least a year of non-stop work before you can even consider yourself prepared to start it. However, we don't have that long. Even though it's dangerous we have to force their physical stamina to it's absolute limit in order to rush the training."

"So how long do they have to keep this up for?"

"Seven days with a five hour break each day to eat and sleep. Anyone who can't keep up the pace will be unfit to undergo the training. They'll be useless in the seemingly inevitable upcoming battle."

-

Hidden Stone was alive with activity once again but the residents had changed greatly. Yukio and his followers had come ashore after Juube's battle and taken over. Yukio sat at the top of the Tsuchikage's tower where his throne now sat. The ships off the shore had been completely deserted. One of Yukio's guards came up the stairs and bowed to him. "Yukio-sama...Ryuukihei Taiga-sama is here to see you, as you requested."

Yukio nodded to the guard. "Very well. Send him up."

The guard bowed again and headed back down the stairs. A moment later a man in his late thirties walked up onto the top of the towers, giving Yukio a much deeper bow than the guard had. The man had short silver hair which was spiked and dark blue eyes. He wore a robe of the same dark blue color as his eyes with silver designed which matched his hair decorating it. He rose back into a standing position and looked at Yukio. "You sent for me Yukio-sama?"

"I have a mission for you..." He said as he handed Taiga a folder.

He opened the folder and began skimming through the pages, his interest visibly increasing as he got about halfway down the first page. "The Fire Country...this is the home of the ones who gave Juube's forces trouble...the home of the bastard who killed my daughter."

"Yes. This mission sends you to the village of the man who killed Mina, that's one of the reasons I'm sending you. A chance for you to get your revenge and put this behind you. But as you know, personal objectives come second to the mission."

"Of course, I'm well aware of that." He said as he finished the rest of the contents of the folder.

"Can you handle it?" Yukio asked calmly.

"It shouldn't be a problem, my lord. If I may ask, who else will you be sending?"

"I have complete faith in you and will allow you to hand pick the team yourself. This should prevent any possible complications from arising."

"In that case, I wish to take two men with me." Taiga stated plainly.

"Only two? Don't underestimate these people...that's what killed Nobu and your daughter." Yukio actually sounded like he wanted to make sure this man was safe.

"It'll be fine...I've read over the mission and am fully confident that three people will be enough to pull it off." He said sounding completely sure of himself.

"Very well...and who might those two be?"

Taiga's calm attitude remained the same as he simply spoke two names. "Shogoten Juube and Atiba Akatarou."


	9. Infiltration

Chapter 9;

Infiltration

Jiraiya sat on a log at the edge of the field where Kakashi and Naruto were doing their training. He'd told Kakashi about everything that had happened during the time he'd spent with Naruto. Every detail about the formation of the tails and Naruto's complete loss of self control after the formation of the fourth. In light of that information Kakashi had asked him to oversee the training in case something like that happened again.

He'd arrived just after Kakashi had finished explaining to Naruto just what the training was going to be. That was three days ago. So far the training was not going according to plan. Naruto was unable to draw out the Kyuubi's power at will and so Kakashi was left having to try and force it out. The best they'd gotten was a tail and a half and even then Naruto's control over the chakra had been as bad as ever.

The two were taking a break from beating on each other at the moment, both of them looking fairly worn out when Jiraiya called over. "Hey Kakashi! Come over here for a second!"

Kakashi got up and walked over, taking a seat beside Jiraiya on the log. "What is it?"

Naruto watched from a distance as the two talked but he couldn't make out anything they were saying. They seemed to be talking extra quietly as if they didn't want him knowing what was going on. After a moment Kakashi's voice returned to it's normal volume. "That had passed through my mind...but are you sure it's a good idea?"

"It doesn't look like you have a better idea...and as long as I'm here, what could possibly go wrong?" Jiraiya said this with a joking tone, he didn't seem worried at all.

Kakashi nodded and walked back over to Naruto, motioning for him to stand up. "We're continuing."

"What did you two talk about?" He asked as he got back onto his feet glancing over at Jiraiya.

"You'll find out in a second." He responded as he reached up and lifted his headband onto his forehead, revealing the sharingan. "Look into my eye."

Naruto obeyed and looked into the sharingan. He had no idea why he was doing this, but he just kept staring even though nothing was happening. Then, without warning, the three markings in the eye began to slowly rotate around the center. His gaze was locked onto the sharingan and when he tried to look away he found that he couldn't. The speed at which the markings were rotating gradually grew faster. The world turned to darkness and only the sharingan remained, the rotation now beginning to slow down again.

As they rotation completely stopped the sharingan vanished, leaving Naruto in a world of darkness. Looking down he found he could see himself perfectly fine but all around him there was nothing but black. He felt the ground vanish beneath him and began to fall downward. The farther he fell the colder he became until he finally landed on a stone floor. He could see again. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of stone. In front of him stretched a hallway he couldn't see the end of, but behind him he heard a low growling.

He turned to find himself facing something he'd seen a couple times before. Behind a massive barred door sat a pair of giant glowing eyes and a row of deadly looking teeth. The Kyuubi.

-

The east side of Konoha was the quietest part of town at all times of the day. The two guards standing on top of the east gate were bored out of their minds. The street behind them was completely deserted and in front of them was nothing but an endless expanse of trees. Guard duty was bad enough, but they all regarded the east gate as the worst place to be forced to spend the day. Today however, it was about to become much worse than usual.

Blood flew through the air as one of the guards was stabbed through the throat. He hit the ground dead, never even seeing what hit him. The second guard stood motionless in shock. After a moment he came back to his senses and looked frantically around for the attacker, but seeing nothing there he jumped off the wall towards the street to warn the village. He felt two blades pierce his back in mid-jump, then be pulled back out. He quickly looked over his shoulder knowing he was already as good as dead but wanting to at least see his attacker.

He was dissapointed though, as nothing was there. The last thing he saw before he dies was the east gate being pushed open from the inside by some invisible force. Had he lived just a minute longer he would have seen Juube appear out of nowhere in the center of the now opened gate. Two men walked out from the trees and joined him. One was the robed Ryuukihei Taiga and the second was a man in his late teens to early twenties with a hawk perched on his shoulder.

The second man was wearing an off-white kimono decorated with what appeared to be yellow lightning bolts. He had perfectly straight black hair that almost reached his shoulders which looked like he'd spent an unhealthy amount of time on making it perfect. The light brown hawk on his shoulder looked around the street blinking repeatedly. Taiga looked to Juube and then to the other man. "This is the village. So far everything has gone according to plan...let's keep it that way." He glared at Juube as he added that final note.

"Yeah, yeah...whatever ya say Taiga. I'm gonna go get this damn mission over with, I'll see ya guys later." He smirked at Taiga and vanished.

The two heard his footsteps running off for a second before he got too far away to hear. Taiga turned to the remaining man. "I hate that bastard...but his skills will come in handy for this mission. At least I can trust you to do this right...just wait for the signal."

Taiga then walked off in a different direction from the one Juube went, leaving the black haired man alone. He made a clicking noise with his tongue and the hawk took flight. He began walking straight down the street carefully examining everything he passed. Before long he came into a crowded shopping area. He looked all of the people he passed over as carefully as he'd been examining the buildings.

A small group of children ran past him laughing as they played some kind of game. He watched them as he continued continued walking, clearly deep in thought. So deep in fact that he didn't even notice the woman in front of him until he'd walked into her. Both of them fell backwards into the street, the woman dropping everything she was carrying. He climbed back onto his feet and looked down at her, a few passerbys giving them an odd look.

She had black hair a bit shorter than his and only looked a little bit older than him. After a minute of just looking at her his expression changed completely. He gave her a friendly smile and held his hand out to help her up. "Sorry about that...my name's Akatarou. Are you alright?"

She took his hand and climbed back up. "I'm alright..." She paused for a moment as Akatarou began to pick up the things he'd caused her to drop and then finished as he handed it all to her. "I'm Shizune."

-

"What the hell do you want, brat?" Boomed the voice of the monster behind the bars.

Naruto stood there in silence. He didn't even know why he was here. He had looked into Kakashi's sharingan and...all at once he realized what Kakashi and Jiraiya had talked about. They'd given up on forcing the Kyuubi's power out through fighting so they'd sent him here to confront the Kyuubi directly. He stood his ground and responded without the slightest waver in his voice. "Let me use as much of your power as I need as often I need it, bastard fox!"

The Kyuubi simply started to laugh. "And why exactly should do that? Since when do I answer to your demands?"

"Since now." Was the only response Naruto could come up with quickly.

The Kyuubi slowly stopped laughing and looked like he was thinking. After a moment he spoke again. "Alright brat...I'll make a deal with you. You're small enough to fit through the bars. Step into my prison."

Naruto took a step back. "And what're you gonna do if I do that?"

"I'm going to kill you of course."

"Then why the hell would I do that!" Naruto shouted at him.

"The deal is simple. If you can survive for one hour in here with me then I will grant your request and allow you access my power whenever you need it."

Naruto stared at the Kyuubi thinking about it. He walked up to the edge of the bars and the Kyuubi gave him an evil grin. He stood there considering his options, then took a deep breath and stepped through the bars towards the beast on the other side.

-

Juube stood in the center of a crowded street but there was nobody who could see him anyway, so he didn't care. He looked up at the Hokage's tower and scoffed. "Stupid bastards...could they even be anymore freakin' obvious?"

He jumped up onto the roof of a house and began running for the tower along the rooftops. He looked somewhat annoyed, but that was just because of his mission. He'd been ordered not to engage anyone with Taiga's direct permission. All he had to do was sneak into the tower, grab the Fire Relic, and get back out before anyone even realized he was there. It was boring, but he had to do it. He very much doubted he'd survive pissing Yukio off a second time so soon after the first.

-

Kakashi carried the unconscious Naruto across the field and set him down next to Jiraiya's log. "I suppose all there is left to do now is wait."

"How interesting...it appears my job is going to be exceptionally easy." Said a voice behind them.

Both Jiraiya and Kakashi jumped up and turned around instantly to face the speaker. Taiga stood there, not twenty feet away from where they'd been. Somehow he'd managed to sneak up on them without them noticing a thing. Both stood prepared to fight, but Jiraiya shook his head at Kakashi. "I can handle this guy. Go and raise the alarm, there could be more of them."

Kakashi was confident in Jiraiya's decision and nodded, taking off in the opposite direction. Taiga reached into his robes and pulled out a rapier, pointing it at the grey haired Jounin. A stream of water burst forward from it, hitting Kakashi before he got anywhere. He started to turn his head to look back but only made it halfway before he couldn't move at all. Jiraiya looked to see Kakashi frozen solid, encased in ice.

Jiraiya turned back to Taiga as he began to speak. "I have no desire to fight with you. I'm here for him." He said as he looked down at Naruto. "Alive if possible...dead if necessary."

"Just who do you think you are?" Jiraiya asked.

"Oh...how rude of me, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Ryuukihei Taiga, seventh member of the Elite Twelve."


	10. The Beast Within

Chapter 10;

The Beast Within

The world on the other side of the bars was nothing like what Naruto had expected. It wasn't the cold dark prison he could see from the outside. He found himself standing in what appeared to have once been Konoha. The buildings and walls lay in ruins and the ground was littered with charred skeletons. The sun was hidden behind thick black clouds but there was no rain or lightning. The air was dead still...not even the slightest breeze blew across the remains of the village.

Towering a hundred feet in front of him was the Kyuubi, glaring down at him with an evil grin. "I'm impressed, brat. I didn't think you'd have the guts to step through the bars...but there's no turning back now..."

This comment caused Naruto to look behind him. There was nothing but more of the destroyed village. The prison bars that he had expected to be an escape for him in an emergency were nowhere to be seen. He was trapped here. His thoughts were cut off as a ball of fire burst out of the Kyuubi's mouth at him.

He dodged to the side as the attack punched a crater into the ground. As he ran towards the Kyuubi he formed a single seal and shouted. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

He stopped abrubtly when only three clones appeared...he had meant to create at least a hundred. The Kyuubi began to laugh as a confused expression formed on Naruto's face. "Didn't you ever notice? The only reason you can create so many clones is because of my chakra. You're in my world now...my power is mine and mine alone here, it's useless to you. If you're going to survive this hour...you need to do it with your own strength."

Seeing no choice but to work with what little he had, Naruto charged forward with his three clones. One of them began spinning chakra over the palm of the real Naruto's right hand. As soon as the Rasengan was fully formed he leapt into the air, slamming it directly into the Kyuubi's forehead. It was immediately obvious that the monster didn't feel a thing.

As Naruto fell the Kyuubi raised one of it's giant paws and swatted him out of the air. He slammed into the ground hard, vanishing in the rubble and the cloud of dust his impact stirred up. The expression on the Kyuubi's face just grew even more amused. "You came here and directly challenged me...but this is all you've got? Pathetic! You don't even understand what happens if you die in this world...do you?"

"Of course I understand!" Naruto shouted as he climbed back up.

The right half of his shirt was completely gone and his chest, arm, and shoulder where it had been were badly torn up. Without the help of the Kyuubi's chakra it wasn't healing on it's own, something Naruto had never experienced. He was also breathing heavily...he hadn't ever realized how much energy the Rasengan drained from him. "If I die here...I die in the real world too. That's why I can't lose!"

The strength of the Kyuubi's laughter at this caused the ground to tremble. "You stupid brat! You really are clueless! Dying here is completely different from dying in the real world. If you die here your real body will be perfectly fine...it's your spirit that will die. And if your spirit dies then the seal on my prison will be broken...I will gain complete control over your body. The destroyed version of Konoha that you see before you now...this is what will become of the true Konoha if you die here, little brat!"

-

"I'll give you the chance to make the decision for yourself. Which is more important? Your duty or your life? Protect this boy and you will surely die...abandon him and you will live to see another day." Taiga stated calmly as he began to slowly walk towards Jiraiya.

"Sorry, but I don't protect him because it's my duty...as annoying as he can be I won't turn my back on a friend."

Taiga sighed heavily as he readied his rapier. "You people are pathetic. The sun has already set on your little "Hidden Villages", all you're doing by fighting me is desperately trying cling on to that last bit of light on the horizon regardless of how inevitable it is that that too will eventually fade. The documents in that Hidden Stone village taught us everything we need to know about your world..."

"I see...so that's how you found us here. But what exactly do you want with Naruto?" Jiraiya was genuinly curious, he hadn't expected this.

"One of our warriors fought him in Hidden Stone. According to his report he possesses a power that could potentially reach a level above the Elites. My master cannot allow any threats to remain. This boy will either join us or he will die."

"I'm afraid he won't be doing either." Said a voice behind Taiga.

Kakashi's fist hit a wall of ice that suddenly rose up behind Taiga and without taking his eyes off of Jiraiya, Taiga spoke. "Did you think you'd surprise me? Though I don't understand exactly how you did it...I noticed right away that the you I froze was not the real you."

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" Jiraiya yelled as he slammed his palm into the ground.

A frog the size of his head appeared and looked up at him, then over to Taiga and Kakashi. Jiraiya looked at the little creature and gave it an order. "Run and find another shinobi! Let them know that there are enemies in the village!"

The frog gave him a surprised look but obediently took off towards the main part of the village. Taiga pointed his rapier at it and another stream of water stream shot forward but Jiraiya jumped in front of it and knocked it off course with his fist. The frog got away and Jiraiya found the lower half of his right arm frozen solid. He slammed it into the ground breaking it off as Kakashi spoke to Taiga. "It seems like you people really like fighting with water and ice..."

Taiga instantly forgot Jiraiya existed and turned to face Kakashi, his calm expression beginning to fade. "What are you talking about?"

"The one I fought in Hidden Stone used techniques just like yours." He responded, not seeing any reason not to.

"You...You're the one who killed her!" Taiga screamed, his calm attitude completely gone.

The wall of ice between them crumbled and Taiga thrust his left palm forward, hitting Kakashi in the chest. Not expecting the sudden rage, Kakashi was caught completely off guard by the attack but it didn't hurt at all. In fact Taiga hadn't even hit him hard enough to knock him away, his palm simply rested on his chest. "Fucking die!"

Jagged icicles burst out from Taiga's palm and from that range Kakashi had no chance to move. The ice pierced straight through his chest. "Kakashi!" Jiraiya shouted as he sprinted towards the two of them.

The ice melted as Taiga quickly turned back to Jiraiya and Kakashi collapsed facefirst on the ground, a huge pool of blood forming around him. A Rasengan formed in Jiraiya's palm and he thrust it forward towards his opponent. A wall of ice rose up, taking most of the impact before the Rasengan managed to break through and hit Taiga with only a portion of it's strength left.

Taiga flew backwards as warning bells started to sound in the village. Jiraiya's summon had done it's job. He pointed his rapier at Jiraiya and water flew at him as Taiga landed on his back. Rather than hitting directly the water wrapped around him like a snake and froze, pinning his legs together and his arms to his sides. With a simple wave of the blade hundreds of ice needles formed in the air, hovering over Jiraiya as he landed on his back in the grass. Taiga directed them downward and Jiraiya yelled out as they all stabbed into him.

-

Akatarou and Shizune stood in the street talking, still in the same place they'd been in when Akatarou had literally run into her. His hawk was visible circling in the sky high above them. He kept looking around at his surroundings as if everything in the village was of extremely great interest to him. Finally she couldn't help but ask "You're not from around here...are you?"

He looked worried for a second when she said that, but smiled again when he saw that she wasn't asking the question in an aggresive way. "I'm a traveler from a long way away from here...I've never been to a village that was this..." He paused looking for the right word. "...peaceful."

Almost instantly after he finished speaking, warning bells started going off all over the village. Without thinking, Akatarou said "Shit!" under his breath and started to move away from here.

"Wait!" She said the moment he started to move and he turned back to look.

She had pulled up one of her sleeves to reveal what appeared to be a device for firing needles...and it was aimed directly at him. "Sorry...but now I have to be suspicious. Exactly who are you?"

Akatarou sighed and stared at her, his expression looking almost sad. "I guess there's no point trying to hide it from you now. My name is Atiba Akatarou...the tenth member of the Elite Twelve."

-

Tsunade's office had been torn apart and now Juube stood in the center of it holding what he'd been searching for. In his hand was an object identical to the Earth Relic except red instead of brown. It too gave off it's own light from it's center. Outside he heard the warning bells begin to go off and swore loudly. "Just great...they're probably gonna blame this one on me."

He stuffed the relic in his pocket and took off immediately, jumping down from the tower and running along rooftops. He looked for any sign of Akatarou or Taiga, but didn't spot either. Wherever they were, they weren't causing a big enough scene to raise alarms...had he accidently set something off in that office while he was searching for the relic?

As he headed back for the gate they'd entered through he spotted something he'd overlooked on the way to the tower and a smirk covered his face. In the backyard of an exceptionally large house was the boy he'd fought with back in Hidden Stone training with an older man. "Well...as long as the alarm's already been raised, how much harm could having a little fun do?" He said to himself with a laugh as he changed course to head for the Hyuuga training area.


	11. Konoha's Elite

Chapter 11;

Konoha's Elite

Shizune froze in surprise at what she'd just heard. She remembered Neji's report clearly. The Elite Twelve were the strongest warriors in the army that had defeated Hidden Stone and though it was number eight that had defeated the Tsuchikage, she doubted she could defeat even the weakest of them alone. But still, she stood her ground. "What do you want here?"

"I'd rather not discuss that with an enemy. If it's at all possible I'd rather not fight you...so please, don't try to get in my way." He sounded as if he sincerely did not want to fight her.

She studied him carefully, never lowering her weapon. Even knowing that he was an enemy she couldn't find anything about him that seemed evil. His expression wasn't cold like many of the enemies she'd killed over her lifetime. He'd been friendly before the alarms went off and now he just seemed sad about the idea of having to fight. What bothered her most though was the way his tone changed when he called her an enemy. As if he wasn't fully sure that he was making the right decision.

She looked around her at the small audience that was watching from the side of the streets where they'd been shopping a moment before. She couldn't just allow Akatarou and however many of his allies had come with him to just do whatever they wanted to those people like they had in Stone. "I have no choice but to get in your way. Either surrender or we'll have to fight."

Akatarou didn't have to respond before a voice behind Shizune shouter "Shizune! Get down!"

She obeyed quickly and ducked under a fireball spit from the mouth of another Konoha shinobi. The flames continued straight down the street towards Akatarou. He couldn't help but be amazed at how greatly they'd underestimated his speed, he had plenty of time to dodge. As he started to the side he glanced over his shoulder and his eyes grew wide. He stopped in mid-dodge and raised his arms in front of him to defend, taking the fireball directly.

Shizune got back to her feet as the grey haired shinobi that had attacked Akatarou walked up beside her looking as the flames and smoke died out. It cleared to reveal that the sleeves of his kimono had been burned away and the front of the kimono had turned from white to black. His arms were burned pretty badly.

"He had time to dodge...he even started to. So why-" Shizune was cut off as she realized what was directly behind Akatarou.

Watching from the corner of the street was the group of children that had been running around the area playing. Had Akatarou dodged, they would have been the next in the fireballs path. The Elite darted forward, hitting the fireball shinobi in the chest with an open palm. The man flew backwards onto his back.

Shizune started to raise her weapon again but Akatarou grabbed hold of her wrist, crushing the device. They stared at each other for a moment before Akatarou raised his other arm and hit her in the back of the neck. The last thing she heard before passing out was "I'm sorry."

-

Taiga turned and started towards Naruto. Or that's what he would have done if Naruto had still been there. Where he had been laying a moment before there was only crushed grass. Taiga quickly swung around to find that Kakashi was also missing, only the pool of blood proof that he had been there. The only person still remaining was Jiraiya, impaled by hundreds of needles. He watched as the impaled body turned to mud and spread out across the grass.

"Surprise!" Was all he heard before a Rasengan slammed into his back a fraction of a second later.

He spiralled forward through the air before hitting a tree, splitting it in half. He climbed back up and turned around with a menacing look on his face. Jiraiya stood there watching him with his arm still outstreched from hitting him with the chakra. "When the grey haired bastard created a false body I knew right away...but I noticed nothing from you. How the hell is that possible!"

"What Kakashi created was a simple illusionary clone. It had no substance. My clone was made of earth, the most solid clone type there is. That's how." Jiraiya answered as he got back into his usual stance.

Taiga took a deep breath and regained his calmness. "I can tell just by looking at you that you're quite powerful. Who are you?"

"You can call me Jiraiya. Based on my strength compared to yours, you could probably say I'm Konoha's equivalent of one of your Elites."

"Impossible. There is no one who can compare to the Elites. Even if you are somehow stronger than me, I am only ranked seventh. I am far from the strongest." To prove himself right he brought an end to their brief conversation by causing two thick sheets of ice to form on either side of Jiraiya.

With a swish of his rapier the two ice walls flew towards each other to crush Jiraiya. He quickly threw his arms out to hold them back as they collided with his palms. Taiga held his hand forward and a spear of ice shot from it at his opponent. Jiraiya quickly lifted himself off the ground, using the ice that was trying to crush him to his advantage. He flipped himself upside down and pushed hard upward.

The two sheets came smashing together, crushing the ice spear between them. Jiraiya barely cleared the top. He landed on his feet and quickly performed several seals before slamming his palms into the ground. "Gamaguchi Shibari!" He shouted.

Their surroundings suddenly changed. Taiga and Jiraiya found themselves surrounded by walls of flesh. Taiga spun around, confused and looking for a way out. As he turned back towards Jiraiya the walls began to close in on him, blocking his enemy from view. All he could do to prevent himself from being crushed was turn and run as the walls chased him.

Finally he reached a dead end. With no options left he turned to face the deadly wall of flesh, thrusting his right arm forward into it. He heard a sickening crunching sound as the bones in his arm shattered. The wall stopped before it reached the rest of his body as it began to freeze solid.

Jiraiya looked around him as everything turned a deep blue before finally shattering, making the training field visible again. A couple dozen feet in front of him Taiga stood with his right arm bleeding badly and hanging useless at his side.

The sennin ran forward, bringing a fist into Taiga's jaw. The pain in his arm threw off his focus and the punch connected, sending him stumbling back. He forced himself back to his senses and stabbed forward without any warning, piercing Jiraiya's shoulder. A bolt of ice shot from his rapier and opened the wound in Jiraiya's shoulder even wider before pulling away.

As Jiraiya clutched his shoulder, Taiga turned and ran into the trees. That last attack wasn't meant as a way to continue the battle, it was a way to end it. Without the use of his arm he knew he couldn't beat the man. It was over, he'd lost. He'd failed his mission. He could only pray that Juube and Akatarou would have better luck with their assignments.

-

Naruto could no longer find a part of his body that wasn't bleeding or burned. He knew he still had at least forty-five minutes to go, but he was starting to doubt he could survive another five. He rolled forward as the wall he was hiding behind burst into flames, nearly taking him with it. He threw a kunai up at the Kyuubi as he ran for better cover, knowing that the attack wouldn't do a thing. He was breathing very heavily as he got into the remains of another building.

"Running is gonna kill me! But I can't fight him! This a lose-lose situation...I don't have a chance." He sat down against a wall, ready to just give up.

Then, for some reason he couldn't quite explain, his mind drifted back to the Chuunin Exam years before. He remembered how everyone was so certain he would lose his battle with Kiba. But somehow he'd managed to win. Then he thought about Hinata's fight with Neji, how she kept going until she nearly died. And Lee, who tried to keep going even after losing consciousness.

Then it jumped ahead to the mission against the Sound Five. Everyone fought with everything they had, refusing to give up. All in order to save Sasuke.

Sasuke...if he lost here he'd never be able to beat some sense into that bastard. And if what the Kyuubi said was true then everyone in Konoha, everyone he carried about, would die if he lost. That was a plan began to form. Jiraiya hadn't trained him over the past couple years for nothing. He'd taught him abilities that might just do the trick.

He stepped out into the open, facing the Kyuubi directly. The monster sneered and glared down at him. "Ready to give yourself up already?"

"Not a chance, damn bastard fox!" He yelled as he performed some seals with his bleeding hands and slammed them into the ground.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" He yelled as a massive cloud of smoke appeared.

Naruto stood on top of the worlds largest frog. Gamabunta. The creature looked around for a moment before speaking. "What the hell happened here?"

"It's not really Konoha...it's the Kyuubi's illusion or something I guess. You need to help me beat him!"

Gamabunta looked over at the giant fox and thought for a minute. "You barely had enough chakra to summon me. You think you can beat that?"

"Just follow my lead! We're using Gama Yuendan!" He shouted at the frog.

"If you say so. Just don't blame me if you die." He said as he took in a deep breath and spit a stream of oil towards the Kyuubi.

Naruto performed the necessary seals and spit a stream of flame from his mouth into the oil. It wasn't as strong as Sasuke's Goukakyou no Jutsu, but coupled with the oil it did the trick. The massive stream of flame hit the Kyuubi square in the face.

As the flames stopped the beast started laughing. "You really think you can beat me with fire? Fire is my specia-" He stopped as he realized how close Gamabunta had gotten while performing the attack.

Ten Naruto's jumped from the frogs head and grabbed hold of the fur on the Kyuubi's face. The real one stayed behind on Gamabunta. After a moment the shadow clones exploded, blowing the Kyuubi to the side and nearly knocking him over. That was the last of Naruto's chakra though and Gamabunta vanished, Naruto falling to the ground as the Kyuubi regained his balance. He was injured, but not nearly enough to end the fight. "Forty minutes to go...but you won't last that many seconds."

The fox raised one of it's paws and slammed it down at Naruto as he landed face first on the ground.


	12. Final Defiance

Chapter 12;

Final Defiance

Hiashi pulled his head back barely avoiding the tip of Neji's katana. The fact that Neji truly was a genius was once again showing itself clearly. After only three days of training with Odana he had already mastered the basics. He could now find and attack his uncle using sound alone no matter how silently he tried to move.

They suddenly stopped as the sound of an alarm caught their attention. "That alarm...have they come already?" Hiashi wondered out loud.

"Damn right we have." Came a voice from across the training yard.

Both of the Hyuugas turned in the direction of the new person. Standing there was a person Hiashi had never seen before, definitely not a Konoha shinobi. "Who are you?" He asked calmly.

"I'd tell ya to ask yer son there, but he can't even see me these days can he?" He ended his line with a slight laugh.

"I don't need to see you...I'll never forget that voice, Shogoten Juube. And this is my uncle. My father is dead." Neji growled back at him.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I had a feeling ya might survive...why I destroyed those damn eyes'a yours. Never met anyone else who could see me while I was invisible. But that's alright, cause I'm here to finish the job now!"

Neji raised the katana in the direction of Juube's voice. "Stay out of this Hiashi. This is my fight alone."

Hiashi didn't take his eyes off of Juube. "You're not ready yet, Neji. This is the man who beat you so badly when you were at your best and killed the Tsuchikage. Let me deal with him."

"He's not as strong as he thinks. He took me by surprise last time and the only reason he defeated the Tsuchikage was because the Tsuchikage couldn't see him. He's nowhere near the strength of a Kage...his only real advantage is his stealth and that's worthless against us."

Hiashi sighed and let his stance relax. "Fine. But I'm not going to let you use revenge as an excuse to die. If things start to look bad I'm jumping in."

He didn't even acknowledge his uncle's response as he charged forward at Juube, the katana held at his side. He slashed horizontally as he reached the point where he had heard the man's voice. Metal collided with metal as Juube defended with one of his daggers. "Ya honestly think ya can beat me blind, kid? Ya must be outta yer damn mind!"

Neji pulled away and rolled to the side as Juube drew his dagger sideways, sending an arc of energy where he'd been. Hiashi ducked under it and it continued into the wall of the house, exploding on impact.

Neji lunged at him again from the side swinging the katana at his head this time. The Elite dove backwards sending energy from both of his daggers this time. Neji flipped over them and brought the blade down as he fell. The tip touched flesh, drawing a red line across Juube's chest. "Interestin'. Ya can fight even without yer eyes."

Juube started rapidly slashing his daggers through the air, sending tons of his energy attacks at Neji. The noise they made as they cut through the air was fairly loud, making it easy to dodge one or two, but so many at once made it difficult to tell exactly where they were coming from.

As quickly as he could he began to dodge them, but Juube wasn't letting up. He was doing well until he heard his uncle shout "Neji! Watch out!"

But by the time he heard it, it was already too late. With all the noise from the energy and the effort he'd put into dodging he failed to notice that Juube had suddenly started firing only half as many attacks. That fact along with the reason why only came to him when one of Juube's daggers pierced through his chest. He'd thrown it and used the other to fire energy to guide him right into it's path.

He felt the dagger be pulled out, immediately followed by a foot connecting with his face. He stumbled backwards holding his nose, which he was fairly certain had been broken. If he could see this wouldn't have happened...but now he was losing to the same man again. Before Juube could attack again ten shuriken came flying towards him from the side. He turned and cut them all down with his daggers as Hiashi charged in at him.

-

Kakashi lay on his back on a table in Konoha's hospital. Five medical ninjas surrounded him, working as quickly they could to heal the massive wound in his chest. Jiraiya's earth clone had gotten him there just in time. Even a minute later and they probably wouldn't have been able to do anything to save him. Things still weren't looking good, but there was hope.

The door burst open and Sakura came running in followed closely by Tsunade. They'd been training when a shinobi gave the news. Sakura had gone running immediately and Tsunade had chosen to follow. "Kakashi-sensei..." She said in a voice that was almost a whisper.

The medics had removed his mask and shirt to make their work easier. It occured to her that this was the first time she'd ever seen his face, but she hardly cared at the moment. Tsunade walked up to one of the medics and simply said "Move over."

He obeyed and she took his place. She was known for her ability to fully heal wounds that nobody else could even begin to do something to help with. Sakura had picked up some medical techniques during her training, but right now she felt like all she could do was stand against the wall and watch.

-

The back of Juube's hand struck Hiashi's jaw, knocking back for the third time since they started fighting. A small stream of blood was coming from Juube's mouth from Hiashi's first attack. He'd hit him in the chest with an open palm and while he appeared fine on the outside, he could feel that the attack had struck him internally. He'd quickly realized how dangerous the man was and hadn't allowed him to get a second hit.

Hiashi barely dodged an arc of energy as he got back up and went at Juube again. The two were about even in skill and strength, but Juube had the advantage of range. Another energy attack came at him and he spun in place rapidly, dirt flying up around him. When the energy hit the defense it reversed and flew back at Juube. He cancelled it out with a second one and charged again the moment Hiashi stopped rotating.

Before he could fully regain his balance Juube's dagger stabbed into his stomach. Juube turned, pulling it out and stabbing him again in the shoulder before finishing with a kick to his chest. Hiashi hit the ground on his back and lay there, the pain in his gut preventing him from getting back up.

He smirked as he looked at the two Hyuuga's in front of him, one unable to get up and the other blind and badly weakened. "Looks like it's over...gotta give ya some credit though. Ya lasted longer than most people d-"

He stopped speaking and spit out blood as a palm hit him in back, damaging his internal organs the same way Hiashi's attack had done. He turned around and was instantly hit not by a fist or palm but by two outstretched fingers. More of the same type of attack followed rapidly, each one hitting a different spot. Hiashi smirked as the final attack hit. "Nice timing, Hanabi."

Juube stared at the little girl that had just attacked him as he realized that his body seemed heavy. Like she'd just somehow prevented him from using a vast majority of his strength. He used what strength he did have to raise one of his daggers over his head as it started to glow with energy. "Dammit! You little bitch!"

He never got the chance to swing the dagger and release the energy though as he suddenly found that his arm was no longer attached to his body. Neji stood just behind him, his katana covered in blood. He turned and looked at the boy, fear and shock in his eyes for the first time ever. He couldn't do anything but stand there as Neji drove the katana through his chest.

He coughed up more blood and fell to his knees as Neji pulled the weapon back. "Looks like...this is the end, huh? I've got just one request before I die..."

"What makes you think I'll give you a last request? You deserve nothing." Neji responded with hatred clear in his voice.

"Maybe not, but my request benefits yer little village more than it does me. If it has to end like this, I at least wanna piss off that old bastard Yukio one last time." He reached into a pocket inside his shirt with his remaining arm and pulled out the Fire Relic.

"What is that...?" Hiashi asked as he stared at it.

"This's what we attacked yer village for. We destroyed that Hidden Stone place for one just like it. If I can't hand this to the old bastard myself, then he ain't gettin' it at all. So just defend it...a tiny bit better this time." Juube dropped the relic and fell on his face the moment he finished speaking.

-

Naruto lay in a bed in Konoha's hospital, right where Jiraiya's clone had left him. Nobody was in the room with him, as he was there simply to rest and had no wounds. Nobody was there, so nobody saw his eyes slowly begin to open. Eye's that weren't Naruto's, but instead the blood red eyes of the Kyuubi.


	13. Darkness Awakens

Chapter 13;

Darkness Awakens

Naruto sat up in the hospital bed with a huge smirk on his face. His eyes were no longer his, but rather the demonic eyes of the Kyuubi. He slowly lifted his hand and examined his palm with a look of amazement on his face. After a moment he burst out laughing and formed a fist, a layer of dark orange chakra forming around it. "Stupid brat, you should've known better then to step through the bars into my world! Just goes to show how idiotic you really were!"

"I see...so that's how it is." Came a woman's voice from behind him, instantly cutting off his laughter.

Kyuubi jumped onto his feet and spun around. Sitting in the open window was a young woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes. She was dressed entirely in white and had a violin case strapped to her back in the same manner that many shinobi carried swords. To the naked eye she appeared weak and fragile, but he could feel incredible power in her. Power surpassing even the blonde bastard that sealed him in this body so many years ago.

As he glared at her, she continued to talk. "I've been watching you over the past couple days, but there's a totally different feel to you. You're no longer the same kid. That much is obvious. In Homaru's report he called your transformation when you fought him almost demonic and right now I can see exactly what he meant. But 'almost demonic' isn't quite right is it? Back in the Stone Village I came across a scroll speaking of a technique to seal demons inside a Human...until right now I thought it was just a myth you people came up with. But it's true isn't it? You're one of them."

It took him a minute to figure out what report she was talking about before remembering the red haired boy back in Hidden Stone that he'd failed to kill. There was no doubt that she was one of his companions. After another moment of glaring he responded. "You talk too damn much. Either tell me what you want here or get out of my sight. I have more important things to take care of right now."

"Put in simple terms we came here under orders to either convince you to join us or kill you. Personally I don't think it's too difficult of a decision but I'll give you a minute to think about it." She told him as she glanced back out the window.

"If you think death threats are enough to sway me you're greatly mistaken. Even the little brat wouldn't give in to them. The only difference between myself and him in that aspect is that if you attack me you'll regret it." He growled at her as he turned and started towards the door.

She just gave a quiet laugh and hopped off the windowsill onto the floor of the room. "Is that so? I was hoping that threats wouldn't be necessary in the first place. And I definitely don't want to fight you...my clothes would get all dirty and a clash between the two of us would draw way to much attention for my liking." She paused for a second, her face making it clear that she was thinking, before she continued. "What were you referring to when you said had more important things to take care of?"

He stopped as he placed his hand on the doorknob and turned his head back towards her. "Not that it matters to you, but something that I started a long time ago. The destruction of this pathetic little village."

As big as he talked he actually doubted his ability to back up his words at the moment. The fact that he was in a Human body prevented him from using his full strength. He was aware that an entire village might be a bit more than he could handle at the moment. But as he stated his intentions a look of great interest spread across the woman's face.

"I see. Then there's really no reason for you to refuse to join with us, as we have the same objective. Four of the villages here have something very important to us. Five if you include the one we've already dealt with. Demon, are you familiar with the objects known as the Elemental Relics?"

Almost immediately the Demon Fox burst out laughing. "Of course I know of them. I've been here since long before they came and I know exactly why you're seeking them. When I first saw your ships through this little brat's eyes I had no idea where'd you came from or who you were...but it all makes sense now! I also know..." His laughter stopped and he gave her a mischivous grin. "...that you're wasting your time. The Relics are powerful, there's no denying that. But the ability to tap into that power was lost hundreds of years ago!"

"If you're referring to the Konten we already have it in our possesion." She replied calmly. "Come with me and you can become even more powerful than you already are. Alone you can be defeated, but with us you'll be unstoppable."

The laughter cut off instantly and Kyuubi's amused look quickly faded away. "If you're telling the truth...then perhaps a temporary alliance would be benificial to me." He said thoughtfully. Seriously considering her offer for the first time. "Very well, I'll go with you. Just remember that if you do anything I don't like, or if I find out that you're lying, I'll kill you with any hesitation."

"Fair enough." She said with a smile that was a bit too friendly. "I'm Naimi. What can I call you?"

He walked back across the room and put on foot up on the windowsill, preparing to jump out as she introduced herself. "Kyuubi..." he muttered quietly.

-

The hallway was long and dark, lit only by the occasional torch on the wall. Every few feet there was a closed door, but never a window. Even if there were windows it wouldn't help the lighting problem any as this particular hallway was deep underground. A teenaged boy with spiky black hair walked down it, not bothered at all by the darkness as he headed towards his destination. He wore a tan, loose fitting shirt that was open in the front showing the muscle he'd gained during his past couple years of training. Around his waist was a black sash tied on by a thick rope, a wakizashi tucked into the back of it.

He pushed open the doorway at the end of the hall revealing a large chamber filled with tables, chairs, and shelves covered in various scrolls. In one of the chairs sat a man with long black hair and a look on his face that couldn't be described as anything but sinister. As the boy entered he looked up and gave him a grin. "So you've returned. How did the mission go?"

"It went fine until you decided to send one of your lackeys to bring be back early. I only managed to kill three of the targets. Now the fourth will have time to go into hiding and he'll be a pain in the ass to find. This had better be important." The boy snapped without even the slightest hint of respect in his voice.

The man's expression turned even darker than usual as he said "You're lucky I like you. There are very few people in this world who can talk to me that way and live to tell about it."

Despite the man's cold glare the boy didn't even flinch and after a moment the man grinned and spoke again. "A situation has arisen that you've probably at least heard rumors of by now. Have a seat, Sasuke. There are things we need to discuss."

-

Jiraiya ran towards the hospital, the wound in his left shoulder mostly sealed by one of the healing techniques he'd picked up from Tsunade. He knew from his clone just how severely wounded Kakashi had been in the battle. Even with treatment from Tsunade herself it would take a miracle for him to pull through. But still, if he could get there fast enough he had decided he would do whatever he could to help.

He turned the final corner to come face to face with the last thing he had been expecting to see. Naruto was already awake, standing in the yard in front of the building with a woman Jiraiya had never seen before at his side. Both had stopped walking to watch him as soon as he came into view. She's dressed strangely for a medic-nin. He thought as he slowed his pace to a walk and approached the two of them. About twenty-five feet from them he stopped dead in his tracks as he got a better look at Naruto.

His posture wasn't right and the way he was looking at him seemed menacing. An expression he'd never seen on the boy's face before. That was when he noticed them. The blood red eyes where Naruto's blue eyes were supposed to be. "Naruto? Are you alright?" he asked in a cautious tone, afraid of the answer.

He knew there were only two possible explanations for those eyes. Either they were a side effect of becoming more in tune with the Kyuubi's power or something had gone horribly wrong and the Kyuubi was now in control. The first words out of Naruto's mouth settled the matter. "Naruto is dead." Kyuubi smirked at the look on Jiraiya's face and continued. "It's been a long time Jiraiya. I havn't seen you since the day I was sealed in this pathetic Human body."

Naimi turned her head slightly towards him. "We should keep moving, Kyuubi. There's no need for us to waste our time here."

"Not yet!" Kyuubi snapped at her, then turned back to Jiraiya. "I have a score to settle with this man. He was the sensei of the one who reduced me to this."

"Fine, whatever. You have two minutes. If you havn't finished by then I'm killing him for you and we're moving on." She said with a sigh as she sat down in the grass.

Jiraiya put his arms up just in time to defend against a lightning fast punch from Kyuubi. He grinned up at the man showing fangs that hadn't been noticeable from a distance. "I've been looking forward to this for a long time. I'd rather be fighting against Yondaime, but since he's already dead this is the next best thing!"

The sennin pulled backwards to dodge to avoid a powerful kick then to the right to avoid another punch following immediately afterward. There's still a chance Naruto is in there somewhere! I can't just kill him! But he's too powerful for me to survive this without fighting back.

"Dammit, Naruto! WAKE UP!!" He yelled as he sent his fist into Kyuubi's gut.

He was knocked away but the grin remained the same. "I already told you. He's dead! A punch to the stomach isn't gonna change that!" Kyuubi yelled back as he resumed his assault.

Looks like I'm gonna have to do enough damage to take him out. I'll have to rely on the Kyuubi's regenerative powers to keep him alive, but if I can't get him under control there's no chance of bringing Naruto back anyway... He thought as he blocked and dodge a chain of attacks. He was beginning to realize that so far the bastard was just playing with him.

Jumping backwards to get some distance between the two of them he held his right hand out as chakra began to swirl rapidly above it. The ninetails stood back and watched, laughing quietly enough that only he could hear. Behind him, Naimi stood up from her spot on the ground. "Two minutes is up. I'm putting an end to this."

"Give me one more minute...this is the end of it right here..." He responded without even looking at her.

He held his right hand out as well and a rasengan formed above it as Jiraiya completed his. The moment it was complete he held out his left hand and a black ball of energy appeared hovering in the air. He slammed it into his own rasengan and the two merged together forming a black rasengan twice the size of his opponents as the two charged each other for the final clash.

"Rasengan!" Jiraiya shouted as he thrust his attack forward at Kyuubi.

In response Kyuubi lunged at him with his attack aimed for it. "Garandou Rasengan!"

The black energy tore Jiraiya's rasengan apart, leaving him completely defenseless as the attack smashed into him. The resulting explosion shook the entire village.


	14. All Roads Lead to Stone

Chapter 14;

All Roads Lead to Stone

"Things are progressing much faster than we predicted." Announced the leader of the nine shadowed figures standing in their cave. "According to Zetsu's report they are assaulting Hidden Leaf even as we speak."

A hooded man with a mask covering the lower half of his face was the next to speak. "We should attempt to form an alliance with them. If they're half as powerful as everyone is claiming they could be very valuable."

"Are you an idiot? To them we're just the same as the Hidden Villages, maybe even worse considering their background. They're here to kill us, not to join us." A hunched over man with a black bandana covering most of his face responded.

The hooded man took a step forward, his temper already rising rapidly. "What the hell do you know. You just hide behind your puppets and don't even know how to fight!"

A metal tail lashed out from beneath the hunched man's robe, aimed for the other man. He jumped aside quickly and the attack blew a piece out of the rock wall behind him. Finally the leader had had enough and spoke up again. "Sasori! Kakuzu! That's enough out of both of you. There will be no alliance but we also will not be attacking them directly as Sasori seems to want. I'll give the orders and you will follow them. If anyone has a problem with that, I'll kill them!"

Everyone in the cave went silent and stared at him, waiting for him to speak again. After he was sure that they were all finished fighting among themselves he started. "From what Zetsu has learned so far, they only have thirteen warriors that would be a threat to any of us in a one on one fight. However, even their weaker soldiers are powerful enough that if they got a chance to attack in numbers there is a possibility that we would lose. Therefore if we are going to have a chance we need to hit their strongest warriors one at a time before they even know this organization exists. Now, listen carefully. I'm only going to say this once..."

-

Naimi brushed the dirt that flown into her off her shirt and stared at the column of smoke rising from the spot where the two shinobi had collided. Neither Kyuubi nor Jiraiya had emerged yet but she was fairly confident that she knew which had survived. As the smoke began to clear she was proven right.

Kyuubi stood on the edge of a crater grinning down into it. In the center, covered in blood, lay Jiraiya. He turned around and walked towards Naimi who was giving him a dark glare. "Look what you did you little bastard. I'm covered in dirt!"

He ignored her as he was more interested in the group of medic-nins and civilians grouping just outside the main door of the hospital trying to see what had happened. Amongst them he spotted the pink haired girl that had been Naruto's teammate for several years. He was pretty sure her name was Sakura, but he never really payed much attention to what was going on in Naruto's life except when there was a fight going on.

Scoffing, he turned away from and start walking around the crater he'd created. "I've had my fun. We can move on now."

Naimi didn't budge though and Kyuubi heard someone run up behind him and stop at the edge of the crater. He turned to see Sakura looking down at Jiraiya then back to him. "Naruto...? What happened?"

He didn't respond and turned away from her to keep walking. "Let's go Naimi. I'm sick of this place."

"What are you doing Naruto?! Jiraiya is hurt, you can't just walk aw-" As she ran up behind him Kyuubi spun around and backhanded her across the face.

She hit one of the hospital walls and slumped to the ground unconscious. As a medic-nin ran to her the two of them finally made their way around the crater and started down the street. "They're not dead you know. You failed to kill both of them." Naimi stated as she came up beside him.

He just kept walking silently. He was already well aware that they had both survived his attacks despite the fact that he had intended both attacks to be fatal. Both times something had taken control of him at the split second before the attack hit and weakened them just enough that both his targets would barely survive. It was all too obvious what that meant. Somewhere inside him, the little brat was still alive.

-

Blood hit the wall as the Hidden Sound Jounin hit the floor of the hallway dead. Sasuke sheathed his blade and glanced at the body in disgust. They fight had barely lasted thirty seconds and all Sasuke had to show for it was a small scratch from a kunai on his left cheek. Other than that the Jounin had failed to harm him even the slightest bit.

Pathetic or not though, the battle had helped to calm his temper over this new mission Orochimaru had given him. Back in Konoha killing a fellow shinobi would have ended with him beind hunted but here nobody really cared what he did as long as he followed his orders. He was no longer the boy who abandoned Konoha two years ago. The new Uchiha Sasuke had killed that person long ago.

These days he was one of the deadliest assassins in the world, killing without any remorse or hesitation. Until now he had never before failed a mission and that would still stand had he not been called back early to go after a different target. He was being sent to Hidden Stone to kill a man called Yukio, the supposed leader of the rumored army that had defeated the Tsuchikage and killed every shinobi in the village.

The main cause of his temper was not what the mission was, but rather what it wasn't. He had been promised that sooner or later the day would come when his target would be his older brother, Uchiha Itachi. When he'd been called back early for the first time since he behan working for Orochimaru, he had assumed it was because that it was finally that day.

He reached the end of the hallway and headed up the stairs to the surface. He had to shield his eyes from the sun as he stepped out into the sand. He turned in the general direction of Hidden Stone and began walking. As far as he could see there was nothing but desert ahead of him as he began mumbling to himself. "If this Yukio is as powerful as they're saying, this will be my last mission before I go after Itachi. With or without orders. If I can kill him...even Akatsuki won't be able to stand against me anymore."

-

Ryuukihei Taiga turned as he heard two people approaching him through the forest. Juube should returning about now...but Akatarou still has a job to do. Did someone follow me from the village? He thought as he readied his rapier with the arm that still worked.

He lowered it with a look of shock on his face when he saw the identities of the two. It was none other than the boy they'd been ordered to retrieve and walking slightly behind him... "Naimi?! What are you doing here?!"

"Ah, Taiga...isn't it obvious? I'm here to clean up your mess. Not only did you fail to get this boy away from his guardians, it appears you actually managed to be beaten by one of them. Now that we've accomplished our mission, it's time for us to get out of here."

"But Juube still hasn't returned with the relic and I havn't given Akatarou his signal yet. Shouldn't we-" He was cut off as she started speaking again.

"Then give Akatarou his signal and don't worry about Shogoten. He may be an idiot, but he's not completely useless. He'll get the relic. Even if something goes wrong, several of my men are keeping an eye on everything in the village as we speak. If Juube fails they'll get the relic and then report to me. Now, let's go."

Taiga did nothing for a moment, then nodded and obeyed. He rose his rapier above his head and a thick pillar of ice shot up into the sky. After a moment it split cleanly in half with a deafening crack and water rained down on the three of them. Taiga turned away and started walking off through the forest. "All right. Let's return to Yukio-sama."

-

Akatarou stood staring at the ground, bolts of lightning coursing around his arms as the sound of the shattering ice echoed throughout the village. That meant that the two primary objectives had been completed and it was time for him to do his part. He was to destroy as much of the village as possible and escape, leaving them too hurt and confused to pursue them immediately.

But instead he just stood there deep in thought. _'This isn't how it was supposed to be, Yukio-sama. After everything you told me I came here with every intention of killing these people. You told me that they were evil. That they were monsters that the world would be better off without. But these people...they're nothing like what you always said.'_

He began shaking in rage as the lightning slowly faded away. "Yukio...you were wrong. Between us and them...they aren't the evil ones."

-

Jiraiya opened his eyes to find himself lying on a bed in the hospital with his shirt missing with Tsunade standing over him. All at once he remembered what happened and sat up so suddenly the Hokage jumped back in surprise. "Naruto! What happened to Naruto?!"

Tsunade frowned at him. "He's gone. You've been out for four hours now. If that attack had been any more powerful you'd likely have been killed instantly. It's the Kyuubi...isn't it?"

His eyes shifted downward and he sighed. "Yeah...it's my fault. I told Kakashi to let him meet the Kyuubi face to face and something went wrong. Naruto is gone." Finally his mind settled on the reason he had been heading to the hospital in the first place. "Kakashi?"

"He's alive and I suspect he'll make a full recovery. It was close but he pulled through. He hasn't come to at all yet though."

Jiraiya nodded. "That's good...how many other people know about Naruto right now?"

"A group of medic-nins heard the noise from your fight with him and went to see what was going on. Sakura was among them and tried to stop him, but he knocked her out. She was unconscious for about an hour before she dissapeared from her hospital room. I have people out looking for her but I havn't heard back from any of them yet." She responded.

She thought for a moment then moved on to another subject. "Also...after the fight one of the enemies turned himself in to our ANBU without a fight. He claims to be one of their Elites, a man named Atiba Akatarou. He also claims that he came here to fight us having been told things that he's since realized are false. After listening to his story and what Shizune, who fought him shortly after he entered the village, had to say I'm inclined to believe him. But just to be safe we're keeping him a holding cell for now."

This news surprised him. It was definitely not something he was expecting to hear. "What of the other enemies? How much damage was there to the village?"

"As far as we can tell there were only two others. The man you and Kakashi fought and Shogoten Juube, the man who Hyuuga Neji fought in Hidden Stone. He attacked the Hyuuga's and was killed. However not before revealing what it was they were after both here and in Stone. They're searching for the relics. Hyuuga Hiashi returned the fire relic to me shortly after the attack ended."

"That's bad news. Only the Kages of each village and a select few others even know of the existence of the relics." Jiraiya was about to say more but was stopped as the door burst open and six shinobi walked in.

In the lead was Haruno Sakura with the most serious look on her face either of the sennins had seen in a long time. Behind her was Nara Shikamaru, one of the most intelligent shinobi in the village. Despite that though he still hadn't advanced past Chuunin, mainly because he was rediculously lazy. Beside him was Akimichi Chouji who, though he was the same age as the rest of the group, stood a head taller than the rest of them. He no longer appeared fat as his height balanced his weight, but he was still very large.

Next was Inuzuka Kiba and his companion Akamaru, a white dog that was now twice Kiba's size. The days of the animal riding around on Kiba's head were long over. Behind him, in the back of the group, stood Hyuuga Hinata. The timid look that usually dominated her was gone now replaced by a strong, determined look that didn't seem right on her at all. Finally, off to the side of the rest of the group was Rock Lee.

"What are you all doing here?! Your training wasn't supposed to be interrupted from start to finish!" Tsunade yelled at everyone but Sakura who wasn't involved in their training anyway.

Sakura stepped forward to speak but was stopped by Shikamaru putting his arm out in front of her. He stepped forward in her place and addressed the Hokage. "Hokage-sama. We're here to ask your permission to pursue Naruto and his captors."

Tsunade's tone instantly turned furious. "Are you out of your minds?! You didn't even finish your training and you expect me to let you go up against enemies like this?! I'm not going to authorize your suicide. Even if I thought you stood the slightest chance in a fight with any one of these Elites there are circumstances involving Naruto that you don't understand. I-"

"We do understand." Kiba interrupted, not really caring at the moment that he was talking to the Hokage. "Sakura just finished telling us everything. Everything about Naruto...everything about the Kyuubi. Everyone here already knows and we're still prepared to go and help him!"

Her eyes went wide at the mention of the Kyuubi and she stepped towards them, shoving Shikamaru out of the way and slapped Sakura across the face. "The condition I gave you when I told you about the Kyuubi was that you were never to tell anyone of it! How many other people have you told?!" Tsunade demanded.

Sakura turned her head back to face her sensei directly. "Just the five people here with me now. They're the ones I knew would understand."

Tsunade went silent for a moment then slowly said. "All of you, get out of here. You don't have permission for your suicide mission. And don't forget that anyone that leaves the country without being authorized to do so is labelled a missing-nin."

That last part was added as she noted the defiant look on all of their faces as they turned and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind them. Jiraiya spoke again for the first time since they'd entered. "Don't you think that was just a little too harsh?"

She turned around to face him and sighed. "I hated to do that...but you know as well as I do that it had to be done. Now they'll think twice about going after Naruto against my orders. We're entering a time of war. Right now rules need to be enforced much more strongly than they normally are in this village."

-

The six Chuunins sat on the steps outside the building quietly thinking. It was Shikamaru that was the first to speak since they left the room. "I predicted that, but it was worth a try. In case that happened I sent a message as soon as Sakura finished telling us about Naruto to someone a bit more likely to listen."

Sakura's head snapped towards him. "You mean...you're still planning on going even after that?!"

Chouji chuckled at the tone of surprise in her voice. "Of course. I didn't think there was anyone here that was actually expecting Hokage-sama's permission. Asking was just a formality."

Kiba grinned and stood up. "If I were the one kidnapped by those bastards I know Naruto'd be right behind me no matter what anybody told him! I'm still in!"

"I won't just abandon Naruto-kun. I'll come too." Hinata said quietly, the determination she'd had in the brief meeting damaged but far from dead.

Finally everyone turned towards Lee, the only person who hadn't said anything. He looked worried about what Tsunade had said but after a few seconds he smiled widely and gave them all a thumbs up. Everyone stood up from the steps at that as Shikamaru announced "Everyone get your equipment! We're going to Hidden Stone!"

-

Three hours later the sun was setting over a faraway village as a red haired teenage boy sat alone at a table eating his dinner. The room was spacious but mostly empty aside from the table, a few chairs, and the large gourd full of sand at the boy's side. Suddenly a sharp knock broke the silence and he looked up from his meal to face the door. "Enter." He said calmly with no emotion.

A Jounin entered quickly with a scroll in his hand and set it down on the table, then bowed to the boy. "Kazekage-sama. We've received an urgent message from Konoha."


	15. The Strongest Elite

Chapter 15;

The Strongest Elite

As Gaara finished reading the scroll for the third time he rolled it back up and set it on the table in front of him, his dinner long forgotten. The Jounin who had delivered the message still stood on the other side of the table at attention, patiently waiting to be dismissed or to receive further orders. The Kazekage glanced up at him from his seat with an even darker expression than usual on his face. "I need to speak to Temari and Kankurou immediately." He stated plainly.

"I'll send them as quickly as possible." The Jounin responded with a nod before turning and heading out of the room.

Gaara sat back in his chair silently debating what to do. He wanted to go and help Naruto personally but knew it would be a poor decision for the Kazekage to just up and leave the village in a time like this where war with a powerful enemy seemed unavoidable. They'd already destroyed Hidden Stone and carried out an attack on Hidden Leaf. It was only a matter of time before they made their way to Hidden Sand and he needed to be there when that time came.

Several minutes later his two older siblings entered the room. "What's happening? The man you sent to find us sounded like it was urgent." Kankurou asked immediately with obvious concern in his voice.

He noted that they had both come prepared to begin their assignments right away. Kankurou carried three large scrolls on his back and Temari had her massive fan. Without commenting he simply gestured towards the scroll that still lay rolled up on the table. Temari unrolled it and read it first before quickly handing it off to Kankurou who finished just as quickly and set it back down. "So you're saying you want us to help them?" Temari asked, though she already knew the answer.

"I owe Uzumaki Naruto more than this will even begin to cover. If it weren't for him I wouldn't have come this far. It's likely that the assassination attempts from inside the village would have continued until I was dead. I want to go myself...but with the current state of things I can't leave the village unguarded for even a moment. I'm trusting the two of you with a very important S Class mission. Will you do it?"

Kankurou just smirked. "You really even have to ask?"

-

Early the next morning Uchiha Sasuke sat on a log beside a dirt road. He knew that he had entered the Earth Country sometime before making camp the previous night but he couldn't be sure just how much farther Hidden Stone was. Finishing his breakfast, which consisted of an apple and two slices of bread, he stood and continued down the path towards his destination. His morning passed by uneventfully as he walked.

Hours later he stopped dead in his tracks and glanced around cautiously. Something didn't feel right. After a moment he spotted a group up ahead heading in his direction, just barely visible because of the distance. He quickly moved into the wooded area off to the right side of the road and waited.

He sat silently on a tree branch as a small army marched down the path past him. There were too many to count, but he guessed that there were about two hundred. Once they had continued on out of sight he finally jumped down. He stood motionlessly for a moment before a smirk appeared on his face. "How long are you going to keep me waiting?"

The only response were three kunai aimed at the back of his head. He spun around, moving his head to let the weapons stick harmlessly into a tree, to face his attacker. An old man returned his grin. He had very short grey hair and a pouch loaded with kunai straped to each of his legs. He readied another one for throwing as he spoke. "You're quick for a little kid. But did you really think we'd just walk right on by without noticing you?"

"I was hoping. But since you're here anyway, I won't kill you right away. We've got some things to talk about."

"I've got nothing to say to you." He responded as he released the kunai.

It passed straight through Sasuke's chest as his body turned to a cloud of leaves and fell to the ground. Before the man knew what was happening Sasuke was behind him with the blade of his sword pressed against his throat. "Sure about that?"

"Bastard!" The man shouted, but didn't move an inch. After a moment of silence he spoke more calmly. "Alright, kid. What do you want to know?"

"Hmph. That was too easy. Well, whatever. Why don't you start with where your little army is going?"

"To a village...Hidden Rain or something."

"Why?"

"To destroy it."

"Why?"

"Because it looks like fun." The man responded in an amused tone.

Sasuke pressed the blade against his skin a little harder, drawing just a little bit of blood. "If you lie again, I'll kill you."

"That isn't a lie, it does look fun. But we're just passing through on our way to Hidden Sand. That's the real target."

"What do you want there?"

"I don't know. Only the Elites have that information."

"I see...one more question then. What can you tell me about the abilities of your leader, Yukio?"

To Sasuke's surprise, the man began to laugh. "I get it! You're going after Yukio-sama aren't you?"

He pressed harder and drew more blood. "Answer my question."

"Alright. I'll tell you what you need to know about him. If you try anything...Yukio-sama will tear you apart with his eyes closed and his hands tied behind his back! You don't stand a chance you little brat!"

Deciding he'd had enough of his interrogation Sasuke decapitated the man with a quick movement of his wrist, moving to the side to avoid getting any blood on himself. He sheathed the sword and returned to the path to continue towards Hidden Stone. In his mind it was as if nothing had ever even happened.

-

Jiraiya walked into Tsunade's office with Atiba Akatarou following closely behind. After discovering that Sakura and her group had left Konoha against her orders, Jiraiya had tried to convince her to send a team of Jounin to force them to return before they could reach Hidden Stone. She had refused, saying that no shinobi could be spared at the moment and if they wanted to get themselves killed it was their own decision. Then she had ordered him to fetch Akatarou from his cell in the Konoha Prison.

Tsunade stood as they entered and motioned to a chair against one of the walls of the room. "Have a seat, Atiba-san."

Akatarou nodded and sat down without question. The Hokage walked up to him as Jiraiya took a seat on the edge of her desk. "My name is Tsunade. I am the Hokage, leader of this village."

"Yes. Jiraiya-san explained to me on the way here. It's an honor to meet you, Hokage-sama." Akatarou said in a much politer voice than Tsunade had been expecting from a man who had been their enemy twenty four hours ago.

She wiped the surprise from her face the moment she realized it was there and went on. "Normally you would be locked up for the rest of your life...or possibly even executed. However, considering that you turned yourself in without a fight and according to my assistant saved the lives of civilians when our own shinobi got carried away, I'm willing to give you a chance. Will you answer a few questions?"

He nodded again. "Of course. I'm ready to help in any way I can."

"Good. Jiraiya fought a man named Ryuukihei Taiga yesterday. He called himself the seventh member of the Elite Twelve. We know that that means he's the seventh strongest warrior you have. He was just slightly below Jiraiya's level...meaning the number six must be on the same level as a Kage. What I want to know is...just what kind of monsters are we dealing with in the top five?"

"Hmm...let me explain it like this. I'm number ten, but if I were to fight eight or nine I would have a small chance of winning. The difference in power is definitely noticeable but it's not massive. It continues like this most of the way down the ladder. The fifth would have a chance against the fourth. That's where it stops. Even if four, five, six, and seven all attacked the third member at once they would be slaughtered. The top three are in an entirely different league."

The slightly relieved expression that had been growing on the faces of both Sannin when he'd said the difference between members wasn't that big vanished in the blink of an eye. But Akatarou wasn't done talking yet. "The first member, the strongest of all the Elites...I wouldn't be surprised if she could take this entire village down by herself. And then, stronger than any of the Elites, is Yukio himself..."

Still caught on the idea of someone destroying an entire village on their own, Tsunade asked another question. "The strongest member...who is she?"

The former Elite paused for a moment as if reluctant to answer, then realized that his information really was the only chance they had to find a way to defend themselves. He told them everything.

-

Yukio looked up from what was once the Tsuchikage's desk as someone began knocking loudly on the door. "Enter." He said just loud enough for them to hear.

The door opened and Naimi stepped inside looking pleased with herself. "I brought the boy."

On que, Kyuubi stepped into the room and stood beside her staring at Yukio. The man just grinned back at him. "Yes...everything is going nicely indeed."


End file.
